Well, there goes my bargain basement 1799 in B-1 in the rare Die State IV (or perhaps even rarer intermediate die state described in the Holmes Sale as unique between III and IV. I held in there as long as I could. http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=370450831875
Well at least I helped establish a floor with a legitimate second bid. I suppose the significance of a fourth basal state S-188 out of eight Die State IVs known (assuming the 7th coin discovered was better) is minutia to the larger coin collecting crowd. This and at least 1 other can only be identified by the terminal obverse die crack. That said. I appreciate the excellent pictures which allowed me to determine the obverse also showed evidence of digits (even though illegible) where they were supposed to be and the correct edge pattern of the die break which gave me high confidence this was not engraving or post mint damage.
It's probably one of the two scuzziest 1799s as well. There is always some risk that selling would be very difficult without authentication of the variety and no TPG is likely to do it. I would have asked for confirmation from Grellman to help in this respect.
Ok, maybe this is the dumb question of the day, but other than basing it on an unknown seller's word, how are you determining from those pics, or the state that thing is in, really, that it is in fact even a 1799 date? I've looked it over a hundred times and it's just not jumping out at me at all. Guy
lol i dont think its a dumb question at all. i mean the guy who put that coin in a flip ages ago must of seen something you cant get in a pic or what little there is left to see is simply unmistakeable for anything else. this is gonna sound ironic but marshalls being tempted to win this made me sorta tempted and im not even quite sure what im looking for. someone either got a great deal on a nearly impossible to acquire large cent or got taken by what someone else thought 40 years ago.
The cracked obverse matches a picture in my Penny Whimsy book. Marshall has better eyes than me, sees more and knows more than me.
The die crack on the obv flags it as the S-188. I need to search eBay more. I'm short on money but I've have gone higher than that on it.
The excellent pictures allowed me to determine the obverse also showed evidence of digits (even though illegible) where they were supposed to be and the correct edge pattern of the die break which gave me high confidence this was not engraving or post mint damage. I use the images I captured from Icollector.com of the Holmes collection. I then rotate it with Microsoft Office Picture manager because it doesn't lose the outer portions of the images as it is rotated like other programs. I can then match the size along with the angle to get a great comparison image. In this case, even the points of greater corrosion matched up closely as one would expect along the edges of the raised break. Other than money, the only things holding me back were my too frequent wishtributions and the thought that even if I was convinced of it's authenticity, it's value depends on others being convinced as well.
so the best chance would be to get any well known TPG to slab it. could it make it into a PO 1 details slab?
That would help to expand the market to people who buy the slab rather than the coin, but attribution by the elite EAC experts like Grellman or Wright would do it among the EAC collectors and leave it free from the tomb.
