Hints About Identifying Braided Hair Large Cent Varieties, Please

I'm about to tackle IDing the varieties of the 1839-1857 Braided Hair large cents in my collection.

For references I have Noyes' books (Vol 5 & 6) and Grellman's book.

Right now I have at least one coin for each date.
So the total coins to ID will be about 25.

Some dates have in excess of 40 varieties.
Any shortcuts in dealing with this task would be greatly appreciated.

 

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In my opinion, you have the best references for attributing these. The later dates are still troublesome. I pick one feature and eliminate all of the varieties that don't match it. Then move on to another feature. Eventually you will be left with the correct variety.

 

I do not envy you the task. My experience, albeit limited, is that trying to attribute many of these coins in less than EF-AU condition can be frustrating at best and nigh to impossible at worst even in the higher grades. When you're looking at a G or VG coin and the guide tells you to look for die lines, forget it.

My suggestion is give yourself an hour where you won't be interrupted or distracted and only focus on one coin at a time so as to keep the frustrations to a minimum. If you want to give up after an hour, then do so and promise to come back another day when your mind can re-engage and your eyes have recovered.

Also, the earlier date coins may be a little easier to attribute, so start with them and give yourself a little success to spur you on.

In the end, call on John Wright for the impossible posers.

 

When you get to the point where you think you have something, maybe tag Jack D. Young here. I think I got his name correctly. @Jack D. Young, if that's okay with you.

 

Start with the date reference numbers. I find the first 2 numbers are most useful and the fourth number on the 1850's. The number for the point of the curl is the most useful as it can usually be determined with pretty good confidence. I use that for the first pass to eliminate all the varieties that don't match it then eliminate the ones that don't match the first number. That will usually reduce it to a small number of possibilities. Then you just have to go to the drawing and descriptions for those varieties. And it does work best on coins that grade better than VF. And you will still put your hair out over some of them.

 

Good luck!

Let me know how you do, and I'll try to post some of mine.

 

This, but I almost exclusively use the middle two numbers. I can usually eliminate 75% of the varieties in minutes by doing this.