Which Coin Would You Choose? NE Shilling Vs. Octo Pan Pac

You chose wisely, numismatic student. Pan-Pac $50s come up for sale on a regular basis and others are listed online. But I cannot recall the last time a NE Shilling was available.

I think you picked the right one. Historically speaking, the Pan Pacific was just another exposition gimmick that didn't sell very well. Not that I would kick it out of bed for eating crackers.

Just wanted to add my voice to the choir picking the Shilling. To be fair, my own collection tends more toward Colonials than Commemoratives (assuming that would be the right category for that hockey puck of gold).

It would be a very tough call for me but as others mentioned the rarity would probably swing me to the NE shilling. As you mention, the $50 octagonal Pan-Pac is regularly available if and when you choose to make that purchase.

I'd prefer a Pine Tree Shilling like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2043034715...mkgroutmp=no

Nothing against the NE Shilling but the lack of design leaves me wanting.

Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts.




Everyone has their collecting preferences and I am a huge proponent of everyone collecting what they like. Coin collecting is so personal. It can be guided by experts, but ultimately you choose to what extent you take in the thoughts and beliefs of the giants in our field, and how you choose to blaze your own path.

For me, the British Colonies that eventually became the foundation of our nation, started first in Jamestown VA in 1607 and second in Plymouth MA in 1620. Jamestown didn't produce its own coinage, but the Massachusetts Bay Colony that sprung up in Boston in 1630 under the leadership of William Blaxton did. Boston was originally named Shawmut and Trimountain, but Isaac Johnson, who had founded the failing town of Charlestown, and led his people to Boston through Back Bay, gave the city the name of Boston in September of 1630.

From the 1607 settlement of the first British outpost in the New World until 1652, it is believed that only foreign coinage, wampum, musket balls and other items were used in trade in the British territories.

Tyler Rossi writes: "How, as a trade-based colony belonging to the world's greatest maritime empire, did the Massachusetts Bay Colony begin striking the first hard currency in North America?

As discussed in my article on the Knights of Malta's right to strike coinage, I find this monetary aspect of state-building fascinating. Since the act of "uttering false coinage" was "associated with lèse-majeste or high treason", what could possibly motivate the early New England colonists to begin minting their own coinage?

Firstly, unlike the more profitable English colonies of Virginia and Barbados, which built their fortunes on tobacco and sugar, Boston instead built ships and facilitated trade. By not producing any salable goods, Massachusetts relied on the "invisible" nature of shipping. The production of all Boston's goods amounted to savings in the cost of trade, instead of earnings, for England. Prominent English merchant Sir Francis Brewster described Boston and greater New England as "that unprofitable Plantation, which now brings nothing to this Nation."

Fifty years after the first coins were struck at the Boston Mint by Captain John Hull, local businesses still relied on a fascinating mixed economy. In a 1704 journal, local teacher and businesswoman Sarah Kemble Knight discussed how, due to a lack of hard specie, "musket balls, wampum, corn, livestock, and a variety of debt instruments—both transferable and non-transferable—served as money" in the Bay colony. This was after Hull, who, according to the extant records, produced up to £25,000. At 20 shillings per pound, Hull struck approximately 500,000 shillings at the Boston Mint before his death in 1683.

By 1652, England had just emerged from its brutal civil war. With internal tensions still high, the English were not as focused on policing their colonies, and the always independent-minded New England colonists seized the opportunity to further their political agenda as an "autonomous entity.""

Even in 1652, the British colonists yearned for autonomy and freedom

"Almost four thousand miles due south, at the Spanish Royal Mint in Potosí, another series of events began to occur which pushed Massachusetts authorities into the business of minting coins: the Great Potosí Mint Fraud of 1649. Due to a complex system of minting contracts and silver trading, the Potosí authorities began illegally lowering the quality and quantity of the silver content in their coins. This fraudulent debasement of the Spanish cob coinage continued until the coins lost an estimated 25% of their face value. Add to this the fact that Spanish coins were both "foreign" and "bore mark[s] of a catholic monarch", and the Massachusetts colonial authorities quickly lost confidence in the Spanish currency.

Overlaid on top of these international geopolitical upheavals, most coins in circulation were simply too large a denomination for everyday commercial transactions. An endemic problem for practically all pre-modern history, most people simply "endured" and turned to a barter system instead. For example, a century earlier in 1500s Florence, the smallest silver coin was the grosso, which had the economic power to "purchase five liters of wine, a kilogram of olive oil, or pay an entire month's rent for a single working man."

While Spanish coins could be chopped into eight smaller pieces, the fragments were rarely precise, and it was impractical to run a full-scale economy on privately created fractional currency.

After considering the intertwined political, economic, and religious complexities, and seeking a viable solution, the colonial government approached John Hull and Robert Sanderson, the only two skilled silversmiths in the colony. The General Court proposed that the two men "weigh, assay, and stamp all silver coins for authenticity and value." When this proposal was dismissed as impractical, the Court returned to the men with the plans for a new mint in Boston. This facility would buy plate silver as well as reclaim low-grade foreign coins, refine the metal, and then strike coins to match the English denominations. As such, the denominations of these early coins were as follows: 12 pence (a shilling), sixpence, and threepence. The denominations were denoted on the reverse with the roman numerals XII, VI, and III.

According to the Mint Act of May 27, 1652, the coins were initially to be "flatt & square." This is possibly a reference to an early use of fiduciary money by the city of Bristol. With permission from the Crown in 1577, Bristol city officials struck square farthing tokens from lead, tin, and other materials. These non-specie coins were struck to fulfill the needs of local traders. However, the Boston Mint was striking coins from specie, and perhaps this was why the General Court quickly shifted to the more commonly accepted round shape for their coinage.

Initially, the coins were simple in the extreme. The obverse design consisted solely of an NE for New England stamped roughly at 12 o'clock and the reverse featured the roman numeral denomination. The two dies were purposely misaligned in order to preserve the designs and not damage the dies. While these coins are not dated, all extant examples were struck for only a few months and ended before October 1652. As a result, they are extremely rare, with only an estimated 40 surviving examples. Due to the "plain and unembellished" nature of the design, coin clipping quickly became a problem and this design was soon abandoned.

To combat this, the General Court decreed on October 19, 1652, that a new design be implemented. On the obverse, this second series displays a roughly engraved willow tree with the legend MASATHVSETS IN around the rim. On the reverse, the date 1652 and roman numeral denomination are ringed by the legend NEW ENGLAND AN. DOM, with AN. DOM referencing "Anno Domini" or "Year of our Lord". Due to difficulties in producing the necessary dies and presses, the first Willow tree coin of any denomination wasn't struck until 1654."

This is the story of the first coinage of our forebears, before we became a nation.

I agree with the consensus. I would have made the same choice.

Neither coin, although the NE Shilling comes closer to what I do collect.