An American silver coin dating back to the 17th century has sold for a record-breaking US$2.52 million at auction.
Stack’s Bowers Galleries handled the sale, eight years after it was discovered in a cabinet in Amsterdam.
At auction this week the coin saw a 12-minute bidding war and fetched more than three times its presale estimates.
The threepence coin is dated to Boston in 1652 and is only around the size of a nickel.
The Boston Mint at this time was defying British authority by producing their own coins, representing a “growing sense of identity…and its determination to regulate its own economy” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Its silver value is just $1.03 USD on today’s market, but the history behind it was what led to the record breaking sale as the most expensive non-gold US coin struck before the founding of the United States Mint.
The owner found the coin in 2016 in the Netherlands in a pasteboard box that said “Silver token unknown/ From Quincy Family/B. Ma. Dec, 1798” and was unsure of any historical significance.
After extensive research and testing it was found to be one of the incredibly rare threepence coins from that period and location, with only one other known in existence which is housed by the Massachusetts Historical Society.