For you large copper lovers

This is my cherry pick of the month, if not the for the rest of the year. There I was casually wandering through the large cents looking for nice evenly chocolate pieces and there it was:


Pretty, at least a fine I thought as I looked it over and twisted it in the light. There seemed to be a little gunk or ding on the date inside the first four so I got my 10X loop out, and there it was:

Woah, a Breen 1885, now its not super rare, but it is listed in the Redbook, making a more sought after variety by non specialists and it books at twice the worth for the same coin without the error. So I casually bought it making it a great cherrypick and my first error large cent.

 

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Congrats on your find , good eyes , I really like the nice color .
rzage

 

Nice find, "fortune favors the prepared mind," or something like that.

 

Nice ! Congrats.

"Luck" favors the trained observer ! :bow:

 

Awesome BQ! :thumb:

I love all the overdate varieties with the large cents and there are quite a few. I sometimes wonder if consuming alcohol, whilst at werk, was a prerequisite for working at the mint? :goofer:

Are you going to shoot for getting all of them now (OD errors)? dd:

Ribbit

 

Gosh no, I really just buy a few here and there when the mood strikes.

 

BQ:
Isn't that a variety, and not an error?

 

Nice coin and great cherry pick. N-2 R2 is the variety and that is nice. This is one I always look for when I go to the local coin store. I went to my local dealer yesterday - and he may have at a total of 10 large cents. Somebody bought them all on Friday. Sigh.

 

Nice catch.
I've never cherrypicked anything.

I've had two coins that turned out to be something more than advertised.
But cherrypicking (IMO) means that you know that what you are getting is better than what the dealer thinks it is.
In both my cases it was much later before I found out what I had.

 

I suppose, but as a variety that has been mis-punched is it not also an error? This could go on and on in a circular fashion :high5:

 

This may be a bit too simplified, but:

Varieties - Coin differences caused by variations in the dies before any coins were struck.
DDO's, DDR's, repunches, etc.

Errors - Coin differences caused by changes in the dies during the time coins were being struck.
Cuds, die cracks, missing elements (3-legged Buffalo, 1922 Plain cent, etc.), die fills, die clashes, etc.

 

I guess the correct term here should be Error Variety. That's what I call them and personally, I don't care what others call them. But given your definitions above, they qualify for both, since changes were made prior to a coin being minted but with the changes, an error occurred. :thumb:

I love the error varieties and am always on the outlook for them. :kewl:

Ribbit

 

Good point.

To me, an overdate is never an error because it was intentional. Premeditated. They knew what they were doing when they did it.

They were reusing old dies because making new ones was so labor-intensive.

Perhaps it's best to take "errors" and break out those due to deteriorating dies conditions. i.e. die breaks and cuds are different from off center strikes, brockages, etc.

With the former, there are many coins identical or almost identical, and we can trace the die states as the die continues to break down.

With the latter, they are "one off". Unique and individual.

 

Very cool cherrypick !!!

Way to go

 

For me, this would include any changes in the die due to its wear - cracks, cuds, 22-plain, die clashes. Particularly anything caused by repolishing the die (3-legged buffalo), which was an intentional act.

 

In the case of the OP coin, that was not the case. The die maker started work that day, before he sobered up from the night before, and started punching in the date upsidedown. While the die could have been tossed into a pile and later they decided to punch over the error, it was an error and they clearly didn't know what they were doing when they did it. The 1916 Doubled Die Buffalo was another case where it has been shown that new employees at the mint created the error, due to inexperience. Also, when making a die for a 1 cent coin, don't you think your definition above is off-center when it comes to the 1/000 error fraction varieties? For that to be "premeditated" it would mean there are idiots performing the function of die maker at our mints and I doubt that was the case.

There are different types of errors and in this case, it's a die maker error, and all subsequent coins minted had the error so it's an Error Variety. That's how I look at it.

Ribbit

 

I would argue that, in this case, the date punching was done in error and then corrected. This is the 1844/81 error. The blunder apparently happened when the person punching the date simply started doing it in the wrong order. Instead of punching 4-4-8-1 so that it would come out 1844 on the coin, he instead started punching 1-8-4-4. When he had the 1-8 punched he saw the error and re-started punching in the correct order over what he had started. Thus, this is a non-intentional error, and not a variety.


edit: it looks like Toad and I had the same thought at the same time, but he posted two minutes earlier, while I was still typing my answer.

 

I agree it's an error but because all subsequent coins had the error and these have varieties, it's also a variety. Therefore, it's an Error Variety.

Ribbit

Ps: The Buffalos don't have varieties, the Lincolns don't have varieties, Etc . . ., so they are plain ole errors. The Large Cents had varieties so when a die maker "error" occurred, it became an error variety. However, when something damaged the die/hub, it became a new error within that variety and wasn't intentional.

 

In futherance, what does qualify as not being an error variety, are some of the overdate varieties. The 1798/7's, the 1800/1798's, the 1807/6's, Etc . . . . All of those were old dies they recut/restamped and were intentionally done to reuse the dies, but that's why they are called overdates and not errors. While it's basically the same thing, it isn't. The original hub was never used on the OP coin until the original error was overstamped, so that qualifies this as an error variety. :thumb:

Ribbit

 

Nice find, congrats!