1788 Massachusetts Cent. Ryder 17-I, W-6420. Rarity-7. Period after MASSACHUSETTS. VG-10.

1788 Massachusetts Cent. Ryder 17-I, W-6420. Rarity-7. Period after MASSACHUSETTS. VG-10.，157.2 grains. A very rare die marriage of which 7 were known to longtime student of the series Mike Packard at the time of the publication of the Whitman Colonial Encyclopedia, including one impounded in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Missing from nearly all famous and comprehensive collections of the series auctioned in recent memory, including the Ryder-Boyd-Ford and Norweb Collections, which were formed before the marriage was discovered by Phil Greco and subsequently published in the first issue of CNL in 1960. Of the 7 known pieces, 5 are Good or below, and one of the pieces is holed, making this one of the finest survivors of the die marriage. Light olive brown and exhibiting the usual fine granularity that plagues the Massachusetts coppers planchet stock, this is a superior example for the grade. A few minor rim bumps are wholly excusable in light of the rarity and general unavailability of this die combination—it is possible that an example has not come to the auction market since the Good-5 example sold in Bowers and Merenas March 2003 auction.，From the Michael Demling Collection of Massachusetts Cents. Purchased privately from Syd Michael Wierzba. <p>，