A bit rough but the price was low enough that I didn’t care. It called it VF but I don’t think so. Other than a NJ Copper and dated 1787, I can’t find and other information to identify it. It matches nothing in the Red Book but then, over 140 varieties have been identified on this type of coin. The horses head is facing to the right but most of them do. Only a few varieties have it facing to the left.
Neither side matches 100% of what I can find. Some areas are a match but others are not, that’s why I just don’t know the variety it really is. The condition doesn’t exactly help either.
No such thing as a bad New Jersey copper, I love them all! It is a 46-e, one of the most common varieties, but often found on rough planchets. My example isn't much better.
Neat! I just bought my first NJ copper at the 2023 FUN show on Saturday, as it happens. I think as @l.cutler said above, there’s no such thing as a bad colonial coin, as long as the price was right. I mean, they’re steeped in history, right?
At least it’s in better shape than mine but you really don’t want to know how much I paid as it was a lot less.
Oh, I never had any doubt that you spent less than I did. Yours was possibly the better bargain. I’ve had a few cheap colonials, like a $40 Fugio cent and some CT coppers I cherrypicked from World coin bulk lots for pennies. I also once cherrypicked a beat up but clear VG details and authentic 1694 London Elephant token for around three bucks. And a decent Saint Patrick halfpenny for under five bucks. Fun stuff. In the early days of eBay, it paid to look closely at the pictures provided of some small bulk lots.
Colonial and state coinages are actually a good area to pick up very historic coins at decent prices. I regularly find R5 Connecticut coppers in lower grade for $20 or little over, R6 occasionally for not much more. New Jerseys are a bit tougher but lower grade common varieties can be found for less than $50 pretty easily. Hibernias are another bargain area, rarer varieties can be found as well if you have the reference to Cherrypick them. Rarer French colonials can be found at amazing prices sometimes as well. I never found anything quite like the Elephant or St. Patrick at those prices though!
Mine certainly wasn’t nice, but I got it for $3-ish in bulk, and flipped it for $80-ish, back in the early 2000’s. It was mostly luck. But bulk World coin lots, if they’re the right mixture, can offer (or at least did offer, for me) some fertile hunting ground, not only for some great World coin cherrypicks but also for the occasional American Colonial or Civil War Token, etc. Getting tossed in with such a varied assortment of mostly unexamined, often exotic, stuff like that can be good camouflage for these kind of goodies, until the right keen-eyed person comes along. The crazy thing about my Elephant token was that it had been right in plain view in the group photo of the small eBay lot I found it in. It was off in one corner of the photo, and partly obscured by shadows and the other pieces, but visible enough that I was able to say, “wait… is that what I think it is?” And lo and behold, it was! VG details with a fairly heavy dent and some other bad hits, but the real deal. I made my bones cherrypicking cheapo World coin and “junkbox” lots, back when I was relatively poor and hungry. “Don’t overlook those World coin lots” was my advice to one customer I had at my early-2000s antique mall booth. He later came back and told me he’d found a Martha Washington pattern dime in a World lot. I didn’t believe him until I saw the published account in Coin World or somewhere like that.
I just don’t get to my LCS as often as I would like. He’s on the wrong side of town. He recently moved about 1 1/2 miles closer to me but he refuses to move to the west side. Lol
I think my next purchase will be a NJ 6-C. Not a terribly rare variety but an important one, the C reverse was also used for some rare pattern coins, the only way I will get a C reverse is on a 6-C.
