1652 Pine Tree Shilling Noe 29

By "Noe-29" of course that is Sydney P. Noe who worked at the American Numismatic Society in New York for many years and who wrote an identification guide by looking at all the die types of Massachusetts silver. NOE-29 is a small Pine Tree Shilling minted in the last seven years of John Hull's contract with the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. These were originally called "Bay shillings." Yours was minted between 1675 and 1682. John Hull passed away the next year. Noe-29 is distinguished by the letter "D" in England having been cut in the die backwards and then corrected. Yours shows this clearly and is a nice example. The hole hurts it in value but not as much as on a common coin. Breen notes two dies states as evidenced by the top of the tree. Will need to look into that.

Please show us the cob you found with this shilling if you don't mind. There are both common and rare cobs too.

Sorry this took a while to click with me. Oddly enough your Noe-29 Small Pine Tree Shilling is the second one I've seen come from the ground. Take a look at this other one, not as nice as yours with regard to wear, but still I'm sure they must be fun to dig. In your thread about the 1802 large cent (a very nice find) you said more Spanish silver has been unearthed up your way. I'd love to see any whole, holed, or sharp (cut) foreign coins. I'll try to ID in place and time the origin of any silver slivers you may wish to share.

Ahab, where on the Mid-coast do you live? I lived in Stockton Springs for a couple years.

Thundercoin I live in Topsham right next to Brunswick. I have spent a lot of time in Searsport as my aunt and uncle lived there. My uncle still has a dental lab in Searsport but lives in Belfast now.

Didn't mean to hijack Ahab's thread, but was wanting to get in touch with Pistareen and didn't know how to make contact other than by making another post here. You had mentioned in this thread that you were interested in seeing more dug Spanish silver coins. I live in SE Virginia and have dug 176 colonial silver coins over the last 15 years including the Lord Baltimore sixpence shown in my avatar, and would be willing to share some pics of those if you're interested. You can contact me by email ..... thanks!

Ahab8, have you researched much into the less-intrusive forms of cleaning? We both know your digs will almost all be Details coins in a slab, but Details coins gain value for eye appeal far more even than original-surface coins. This coin is not the best example - I like the look - but it may be to your financial advantage down the road to maybe get some "less clean" on a case-by-case basis.

Hey Dave I'm very open to any and all advice and promise you guys can't hurt my feelings. If I do something wrong please let me know. Obviously this particular coin could be an expensive lesson learned.
When I gently rinsed the dirt off the tree coin it had a really weird looking brownish red tint to it. So I placed it in lemon juice to try to make it look a bit better. I tried to keep a nice dark toning as I didn't want it bright and shiny. I would love to hear any advice from you or others on cleaning techniques or whatnot. I love this forum btw. Excited to learn as much as possible. The one saving grace on the tree coin is that I have no intentions of selling it. If I dug a NE Shilling worth $100,000 that would be a whole different story lol

i think its still very pleasing being lightly cleaned, esp for a ground find. the hole isn't very distracting either. I think you could probably get $1800 on a good day. but I wouldn't sell it.