Rare 200-year Coin Auctioned

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

A rare 200-year-old coin hidden for half a century in a tiny cabinet of matchboxes has sold for £225,700 - a staggering 72 million times its face value.

The U.S. copper half cent was minted in 1796 - one of  only1,400 ever struck. It was picked out of a hoard of 70 coins by an expert at an auction house in Wiltshire.

The collection had been gathered by Oxford student Mark Hillary, who died aged 20 in 1963 in a climbing accident.

The rare 200-year-old coin which sold for £225,700 was hidden in a matchbox for 50 years

The bulk of his collection was sold at auction years ago but 70 leftover coins had  remained hidden for almost 50 years until family members had an attic clear-out and the 18th century coin was discovered.

The half cent bears a liberty head design on one side with a pole and liberty cap in the background. The reverse side of the copper coin, which is in mint condition, shows an open wreath of olive stems tied with a ribbon.

Heads or tails: The family of Mark Hillary were 'chuffed' at their luck in finding the 1796 coin in their attic

 

The auction saw huge interest from American bidders. The half cent was sold to The Numismatic Financial Corporation in Florida which buys and sells rare coins.
The hammer price for the coin, one inch in diameter, was £185,000 but additional fees raised the overall price to £225,700.

The coin was struck in pure copper at the Philadelphia Mint and designed by the mint's first chief engraver Robert Scott.

EVENTS OF 1796: AMERICA'S FIRST JULY 4 CELEBRATIONS AND THE START OF THE ANGLO-SPANISH WAR

• Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination to James Phipps, which led to the disease being eradicated
• Napoleon became commander of Italy on March 2The U.S. celebrated its first Independence Day on July 4th after the last of the British troops withdrew
• Spain declared war on the UK on October 5, starting the Anglo-Spanish war which continued until 1808
• The term of first U.S. president George Washington ended and John Adams became president on November 3
• Robert Burns's Auld Lang Syne was published in a copy of the Scots' Musical Museum
• The first U.S. Sunday newspaper, the Baltimore Monitor, was published on December 18

There was no local collecting market in America in those days but in Britain the 1790's was a time when copper coinage and copper trade tokens were widely collected. Britain is the natural place for coins of the former colony to end up.

Mr Hillary was a classical scholar who attended both Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was on his way to achieving a first class degree in classical greats when he died in a climbing accident in Greece. He had collected coins since childhood and his passion often took him to the London coin dealers Spink's and Seaby's. Half cent coins were never popular and mintage was often low because priority was given to new gold and silver coins.