Watch List notes:

Greece, Otto, pattern drachma, 1851, struck at Vienna without mintmark, small head, bare head r., rev. crowned shield of arms within branches, denomination and date in exergue, reeded edge (KM.Pn18; Divo.P35 [RRR]), in plastic holder, graded by NGC as Mint State 61, exceedingly rare This piece is the pattern for the one-year type (KM.35) of 1851 with the older portrait and distinctive reverse design - with an unknown mintage, it is itself truly rare in any condition. The modern Greek coinage was just emerging in the third decade of the 19th century. Early in the reign of King Otto, the noted Bavarian engraver Conrad Voigt and his pupil Karl Lange were commissioned to submit designs for a coinage in gold and silver as well as copper. These became the coins of the 1830s and '40s. In 1845, Lange was asked to prepare another design, showing an older monarch, but coinage during this time was extremely limited in mintage numbers, and it was not until 1851 that Lange's designs were implemented. No drachma coinage appeared after this date until the 1868 pieces struck at Paris, featuring entirely different portrait and shield designs. J.-P. Divo (Modern Greek Coins, 1969, page 36) declared that just two examples of the pattern for the 1851 drachma were known to him at the time, one impounded in the Greek National Museum in Athens and the other, very likely this specimen, held in a private Greek collection.

Estimate: £3000-4000