Last Coin Purchase of 2021 - Why did I buy this cull Draped Bust Large Cent?

On New Year’s Eve I had some time alone and scrolled through a few Ebay listings just for the hell of it. I found this Draped Bust Large Cent marked as dateless, attributed it down to the Sheldon variety very quickly, and bought it for $25.



Even though there isn’t a lot of meat left on the bone, this one could be solvable for non-EAC guys. If you’re not into EAC don’t worry about the Sheldon variety - simply date and subtype is enough. (Feel free to try your hand at the Sheldon though).

Very excited to snag this one, especially at this price!

 

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Nice. Good pickup. I won't share the variety until the non- EACers have had a shot.

I don't actually have that variety. Yet.

 

I've got the books but I likely can't ID that variety.
Not enough detail for me to work with.
I'm still pretty much an EAC rookie.

My problem is identifying a specific variety when there are many for a particular date.
I'm looking to buy a coin listed as 1803 Draped Bust Cent Small Date, Small Fraction.
I think I got it right but there was a LOT of head scratching until I settled on what I think is the correct variety.

Then there are two Matron Head cents (an 1835 and an 1838) which are still giving me grief.

 

Haven't a clue.

 

I appreciate the depth of knowledge for this kind of endeavor but I don’t have it so I’m also going to wait for someone to tell me what I’m not seeing.

 

Not a lot there to work with. I THINK I have it after a couple of quick flips through the book.

 

OK! time to attribute.
1. Obverse is a draped bust and the curl
2. HWH right of upright of R; SHWH center of E
3. What can be seen of the top of the dates is consistent with attribution.

1. Reverse of 1796
2. Stem on lowest inside leaf pair on the right at bottom of loop.
3. right stem points to right foot of A; Lowest outside leaf points to inside of left foot of A.

Draped busts with Style 1 hair begin in 1796 and end in the middle of 1798 and Obverse 1 of 1800. Reverse of 1796 Draped Busts begin and end in 1796 with four additions, Rev A of 1797, and reverses J, K and AA in 1798 all of which were earlier used on the 96 Liberty Caps.

So with the search for matches limited to these years, and noting the other attribution points, we can quickly eliminate most reverses. Rev A of 1797 and Rev AA of 1798 are only paired with Hair Style 2 obverses. Rev J right stem does not point to the right foot of A. Reverse K could be a candidate, but is paired with an obverse with a cradled E which does not match this obverse. So this eliminates the alternatives to 1796.

So now we look at 1796s.

Rev S - Yes

Rev U - No. Leaf too low

Rev V - No. Leaf too high

Revs H, J, L, M, N, P, Q, X - No, No inner berry right of loops.

So we have the reverse. Reverse S of 1796. It is paired with 3 obverses, 11, 12 and 13.

11. - No. HWH left of upright of R.

12. - Yes.

13. - No. HWH under upright of R, SHWH under upright of E.

So we have determined it is S-102, 12-S, an R4 variety.

We can also see it is consistent with what we can see of the top of the date, particularly the 1.

 

You're good!!!

 

Marshall, I am in awe!

 

You got it! 1796 Reverse of 94, S-102 R-4. I’m over at college so I don’t have my usual photo setup, but I took these showing a bit more detail.



All four date digits are visible under the right lighting but it’s tough to photograph. Either way, at R-4 this is actually one of the more common 1796 DB cent varieties! “Common” is not the right word to use for any 96 Bust though. The most frequent varieties are R-3, and most are R-5. 96 Busts are tough coins in any grade, any reverse type - and nice ones especially tough, given haphazard production and planchet quality. This one took very little time - once I saw the ribbon loop I knew this was special compared to the vast majority of “dateless” Draped Bust large cents. Probably worth a few times what I paid, but this one is definitely staying in the collection. Very tough date at a massive discount, and really - there’s something uniquely special about those Liberty Cap type reverses.

Also the oldest US minted coin in my collection, beating my 1797 Gripped Edge cent. (Anyone got a cheap 94 Cap?)

 

very very nice I had the year right but was leaning toward s92, rev of 95... So i was close but no cigar lol

 

You did see what I saw...

This listing had a Best Offer option too... if you had caught this one before I did you might have been able to fill a VERY tough hole in the $20 set!

 

You bet your bippy I woulda snapped that puppy up in a heartbeat I can't complain though snagged a pretty 1803 tonight for the set lol

 

Great I got it right. I used a slightly different approach than Marshall did. The curl behind the neck told me it was type 1 hair Then I keyed on the hair waves below ER The wave below the E is right of center. Only about four or five obv type 1 hair dies have it that far right. The wave under the R is also right of center which narrowed it down some more. Then I looked and the distance of the A to the ribbon on the rev for those varieties and the only one with the A distant from the ribbon was S-102.

 

It wasn't quite as different an approach. "The lines after 1. Obverse is a draped bust and the curl" actually was cut off and should have included "under Hair Ribbon indicates a Type One Hair.

So I had reduced the search to Type One Hair, but it's nice to see confirmation using an independent approach.

I sometimes get so focused on the details that I miss the big picture. I'm about to recheck the 8 S-195s I've accumulated to see if this has happened. The numbers are definitely not consistent with an R5+ variety.

 

I will bow my head (and remove my hat if I wore one) to Marshall. Great attribution job!

I tried to attribute this, but did not get very far. Could not even tell which date it was.

I have two S-102's (it should have been therefore easy for me to attribute....)

 

@Marshall, Great breakdown, fantastic lesson. OP, you got the best of the best, wow! Thank you.