hone your grading skills -- classic head half cent

Please assign a grade to the following coin, which was purchased raw.






In-hand the coin is slightly darker than the photos suggest, but otherwise they're pretty accurate.

As always, comments on the coin (both good and bad), along with how you arrived at your grade, are always welcomed.

Have fun...Mike

 

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WOW thats a sweetie !!!!

AU-58 , nothin but the hi points, might slab 61 br?

 

i risk it

Very Fine?

 

Nice. I would say AU-58 and maybe MS60.

 

AU53. Clearly not a mint state piece with wear on the curls and high points of the wreath.

Nice color ! Nice, clean planchet with few marks. A soft strike above the headband. More soft strike in the stars, particularly 1, 2, 3, 12, and 13.

Strike doubling in the letters HALF CENT, particularly the ALF, though the C and N almost look like die doubling.

Nice piece ! Great photos, as always.

 

Au-55/58, Beautiful Coin...

Ben

 

I suspect the doubling you mention, 900, is actually repunching of the lettering.

Thanks for the comments and guesses thusfar, everyone. Keep 'em coming...Mike

 

Cool ! So that makes it a die variety !

Who is the authority on Half Cents ? Cohen ? Sheldon ? I don't have a reference book. It would be great to have an attribution on this one.

 

Obverse looks AU50 Reverse looks AU58. So I will say AU53
Nice smooth planchet, Nice color, Just a very nice early copper.:thumb:

 

900,

Cohen is the standard reference on the series.

The coin is a C-1, which is the only variety for the date, IIRC.

The repunching would make it a different die state, not variety, per-se, and using EAC vernacular....Mike

 

After further review, I'm not so sure that the doubling you see is evidence of repunching, as all examples of he coin I could find show this artifact (actually looks like Longacre doubling), so I now suspect that this letter shadow is evidence of the original die sinking and not a repunching of the lettering. But honestly, I'm not sure which....

Regardless, it is caused by the punching of the lettering, and not any strike doubling or other doubling...Mike

 

So lemmee see if I understand...

They had a good, well made die. They used it for a while, and made some 1/2c. Then they repunched the letters. Is that right ?

Also... what is Longacre doubling ?

 

Yup. That's right. Although as stated above, I'm not sure if the original die looked like that (apparently some think the reverse die from 1829 was first used in an earlier date).

Longacre doubling is a shelf-like outline of the lettering/devices caused by the punch used to impress the lettering/devices in the die, and although the word "doubling" is used, it is kind of a misnomer. A better way to say it would be "Longacre Shadowing" or something....

Here's another coin with obvious Longacre doubling (an 1859 IHC):

 

p.s. Where's Conder when you need him?

 

nice coin i would go between EF and AU

 

Ol' Longacre must have been one heckuva guy to have a type of doubling named after him.

Wouldn't it be cool if he had a twin ? Maybe THAT'S why he had doubling named after him.

And it would be numismatic trivia WHICH twin's doubling a particular coin had. Specialists could debate for years !

OK OK... I'm just getting punchy. It's Friday, work is over in a few minutes, then it's off to the biggest coin show of the year for me ! Yay !

 

Wow, that's one heck of a nice coin you have there. :thumb: AU-50 is my guess, very nice. :thumb:

Phoenix

 

Tough one here.

The obverse shows a fair amount of wear in the hair so I'm going AU50. The reverse, however, is SWEET (the whole coin actually) but AU58 on reverse. Not seeing any real wear there actually just assuming it's circulated.

Overall grade AU53.

Nice coin!

 

Here's a second set of pics.

As opposed to the last photos, which used two lights, the shots to follow used only one. Please note how the luster (cartwheel) is better shown in these photos, as well as the slightly different coloration. Just goes to show the difference lighting makes to a photo:

Old Image:


New Image:





And here's a detail show showing the repunching/longacre doubling on the reverse:



Have fun...Mike

 

that coin is awsome! :high5:i really like the strong strike and the choclate brown color.