1792 Washington Getz Pattern Cent PCGS MS-64 Baker-25D, W-10785, Ornamented Edge (circles & squares) - call for price

1792 Pattern Washington "Cent" by Peter Getz, Copper — Baker-25D | PCGS MS-64 | Finest Known

Among the rarest and most historically consequential of all American pattern coins, this extraordinary copper piece stands apart even within that elite company. Baker-25D is the ornamented-edge variety of the Getz copper — struck with a circles-and-squares edge in imitation of circulating Spanish colonial silver — of which George Fuld estimated only about six specimens survive. Of those, this PCGS MS-64 example is the finest known by a wide margin: rich, even chocolate-brown surfaces with thorough frosty luster and significant reflectivity in the reverse fields, struck sharply and ideally centered, coaxing details from Getz's dies that no other known specimen has delivered. The next-finest, the Norweb "Archangel" piece graded AU-50, realized $207,000 at its last appearance over a decade ago.

Peter Getz was a 23-year-old Lancaster silversmith working in Philadelphia when he produced these patterns in early 1792, aligning them precisely with the Senate's January specifications for a national coinage — Washington's profile with "I" for the first presidency, and an eagle reverse deliberately lacking a denomination so that the dies could serve multi-purposely, as a half dollar in silver or a cent in copper. His was the sole American entry in the competition for a Mint production contract, and his pieces stand apart from all other 1792 patterns as genuine coinage proposals rather than tokens or medals. The Mint Act of April 2, 1792 ultimately overtook these efforts, but the Getz patterns remain the most direct surviving expression of the Senate's design vision.

The provenance of this specimen traces to the Garrett sale and the 1983 Roper auction, placing it among the most carefully documented of all major 1792 pattern appearances. A comprehensive collection of 1792 patterns is incomplete without a Getz copper; an example of this variety in this condition is simply irreplaceable.