Highlighting the online session of the Stack’s Bowers and Ponterio December Macau auction is lot 40377, a lovely golden toned 1905-B 50 Cents of the Straits Settlements, certified by PCGS as MS-64 in a Secure Holder. This near gem is the finest example graded PCGS, and shares the same grade as the finest graded example at NGC. Rich toning bathes both sides of this minimally abraded coin. Scarce in Mint State, this example displays a full strike. There are two mintmark varieties for the year, one with a raised mintmark and one with an incuse mintmark, and per the NGC Census data, it seems that the incuse variety is found only on the Proof strikes, whereas the raised mintmark is observed only the circulation strikes.
The Straits Settlements was the name given to the trade centers of Penang, Singapore, Malacca, and Labuan, which were taken over or established by the British East India Company on the Strait of Malacca. The colony was part of the British Empire until the Japanese took occupation during the Second World War. After the war, the colony was broken up. All of these cities became a part of Malaysia in 1963. Singapore, then as now, was a very important center of trade and commerce.
The online session of the December Macau auction closes on Tuesday, December 9th at 7pm Pacific Time (10pm on the east coast of the United States). For those bidders in Asia the local time will be 11am Hong Kong time on the morning of Wednesday, December 10.
