"1652" Shilling Good Samaritan/Oak Tree Wyatt Copy

Coin Details

Description

A hybrid copy combining Good Samaritan and Oak Tree design elements, produced by James W. Wyatt of London. This piece represents one of Wyatt's more creative productions, pairing designs from two different numismatic traditions in a combination that never existed as an original coin. The Good Samaritan shilling is a controversial piece in colonial American numismatics. Some early references attributed a "Good Samaritan" design to the Massachusetts colonial mint, but modern scholarship generally regards the Good Samaritan type as either a later fabrication or a misattributed piece. The design depicts the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan on one side, paired here with an oak tree design derived from the Massachusetts colonial series. Wyatt's hybrid copy combines these disparate elements into a single shilling-sized piece. Whether Wyatt believed the Good Samaritan shilling was a genuine colonial type or simply created an interesting collector's item by combining popular designs is undocumented. In either case, the piece reflects the undocumented state of colonial American numismatic knowledge in the mid-19th century, when attributions were sometimes speculative and the line between documented types and fantasies was not always clear. This hybrid copy is collected today as a numismatic curiosity that illuminates the developing understanding of colonial American coinage during the 19th century. It demonstrates how copyists like Wyatt both reflected and shaped collector knowledge of early American coins.

Rarity Notes

Rare. Good Samaritan / Oak Tree hybrid copies are unusual numismatic curiosities with limited production.

Cross References

Wyatt Copy series; Good Samaritan shilling tradition; Noe reference: Massachusetts Silver Coinage