RARE 1652 NEW ENGLAND COINS SELLS FOR $2.52 MILLION AT AUCTION

Which coin is the oldest that you have ever seen? Perhaps it's an old quarter that your grandparents saved or a penny from the middle of the century that you found on the street. They are undoubtedly not outperforming a single coin that was just sold at an auction, regardless of age. According to Stack's Bowers Galleries, who handled the transaction, a New England threepence from 1652 recently sold for $2.52 million, setting a world record. 

Just a few weeks after the first mint in the future United States was established, the little silver coin was struck in Boston in 1652. But it was found a long way from its place of creation. The coin was discovered in an old Amsterdam cabinet in 2016. The Quincy family of Boston, the influential political family from which First Lady Abigail Adams descended, is credited with its transoceanic voyage. In the 1770s and 1780s, her husband, President John Adams, was sent to the Netherlands as ambassador.

The coin is a battered disk with "NE" on one side and three Roman numerals on the other. For 120 years, the Massachusetts Historical Society has held the only other example of these coins, which have a hole in them. Because of this, no individual collector has been able to acquire an example, which has caused coin collectors to react with excitement. In the end, the threepence sold for over three times what the internal presale projections were. The sale's auctioneer, Ben Orooji, called the bidding battle "an exhilarating ride and a career highlight."