Massachusetts "Willow Tree" Silver Coins

About This Coin

The Massachusetts Willow Tree silver coins, struck in sterling silver (.925 fine) with irregular hand-cut planchet edges, represent the first of the three tree-design series produced at the Boston mint of John Hull and Robert Sanderson, making them the most primitive and rarest of the Massachusetts colonial silver coinages. The Willow Tree design replaced the austere NE (New England) coinage whose plain, unstamped edges had proven vulnerable to clipping, and it introduced the tree motif that would continue through the subsequent Oak Tree and Pine Tree series. The obverse features a somewhat abstract, drooping tree form that has been identified as a willow, though the crude die-cutting technique makes botanical identification less certain than on later tree types. All pieces bear the date 1652, maintaining the legal fiction of original authorization. Willow Tree coins are distinguished from their successors by their rougher, more irregular production quality — the dies were cut with less skill or care than the later Oak and Pine Tree dies, and the striking was often off-center or weak, resulting in pieces that appear more handmade and less standardized than subsequent issues. This production character, combined with the Willow Tree's position as the earliest tree-type coinage, makes surviving examples among the most sought-after pieces in all of colonial American numismatics. The extreme rarity of Willow Tree coins — only a few dozen examples survive across all denominations — places them in a category reserved for the most dedicated collectors and institutional collections.