In 1652, Great Britain outlawed the American colonists from striking their own coins. But in Massachusetts, necessity overruled the Crown. The colonists minted silver shillings anyway. Each one boldly stamped with the date 1652. Why? By keeping the date frozen in time, they disguised decades of defiance as a single ‘legal’ issue. For over 30 years, these backdated coins circulated in defiance of royal decree. A quiet act of rebellion that helped fuel the spirit of American independence. | Stack'

A small silver coin about the size of a nickel, struck in Boston in 1652, set a world record in an auction conducted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries, the world leader in auctions of rare early American coins and currency. Selling for $2,520,000 (with all included fees), the piece surpassed the previous world record price of $646,250 for an American coin struck before the American Revolution by nearly $2 million. The 1652 Massachusetts threepence also set a record for any non-gold U.S. coin struck be