Collecting coins isn’t an uncommon hobby, but there’s always a chance of finding a rare one that could be worth a fortune. One such coin, which is among the rarest and most important in all of American numismatics, will be up for sale in November. The colonial coin called the 1652 New England threepence is expected to fetch more than a million dollars at an auction held by Stack’s Bowers Galleries in Boston. Only three such coins are known to exist, one of which was stolen years ago and has not been seen since, as per CoinWorld .
Single-Rarest American Colonial Coin
It came into existence during the English Civil War, when colonists in Boston seized an opportunity to create their own currency. They established a mint in 1652 in downtown Boston which was the first in New England and the second in North America. Only three silver coins were minted there, a threepence, a sixpence, and a shilling.
The original designs were used for just a few months, and only a limited number of coins were minted. Almost none of the coins were believed to have survived except for two. One has been tucked away in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society since 1905, and the other was stolen from Yale University’s collection in the mid-20th century, never to be found.