3 Pence - Willow Tree

The Willow Tree coinage was Massachusetts Bay Colony's first attempt at a local silver currency, authorized in 1652 despite English law reserving coinage rights to the Crown — a defiance the Colony quietly justified by dating every piece 1652 regardless of actual striking year. The primitive, almost shapeless tree punch reflects the limited tool-making capacity of silversmith John Hull's Pine Street mint in Boston. Hull retained one shilling in every twenty as his personal fee, a arrangement that made him one of the wealthiest men in colonial New England. The Willow Tree series was replaced by the Oak Tree type by around 1660, making its production window among the shortest in the colonial series.