Obverse Keys for 1798 Large Cents

There are several significant major items in 1798 which help us to group them by Obverse into smaller and more manageable numbers for identifying it's die varieties. These were identified by Sheldon. Dates aren't important for these examples from my collection.

1. Perfect Date or Overdate - Self Explanatory.

2. Small 8 or Large 8 - The punch of the last 8 of the date became significantly smaller during the year. Small 8 is about the same size as the 9.

Small 8



Large 8 - The 8 is significantly larger than the 9.



3. Style 1 or Style 2 Lettering. The letters were strengthened from a delicate to massive design most notable at the serifs of L and E and the tail of the R became more rounded and upright.

Style 1 Lettering



Style 2 Lettering - notice the much longer serifs on L and E and more upright and rounded R tail.



4. Style 1 Hair or Style 2 Hair. There is an extra curl on style 2 hair which is not present on style 1 hair. It is more easily shown than described.

Style 1 Hair



Style 2 Hair



This leads to six groupings.

Group 1. Style 1 Lettering, Style 1 Hair, Large 8s, Obverses 1-6
Group 2. Overdates (actually a sub group of Group 3) Obverses 7-8
Group 3. Style 2 Lettering, Style 1 Hair, Large 8s Obverses 9-10
Group 4. Style 2 Lettering, Style 1 Hair, Small 8s Obverses 11-20
Group 5. Style 2 Lettering, Style 2 Hair, Large 8s Obverses 21
Group 6. Style 2 Lettering, Style 2 Hair, Small 8s Obverses 22-34

 

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Nice post!

 

I agree. Very informative, Marshall.

 

great bit of information marshall.

 

Thanks for the reception. I've received so much help in areas where I'm a novice that I thought I might contribute a little as well. As you can tell from my examples, they don't have to be great coins to identify these features.

 

OK, class, which one is this?

 

Do you want the group or the variety? And no I have not looked at my book yet to see if I could figure out the variety.

 

style 1 hair style 2 lettering small date

 

S-155?

 

Great info, Marshall! I had to print that out to keep for future reference.
Hope to see more.
Guy~

 

Cool article, thanks for sharing!

 

Yep, it's a 155. The die cracks confirm it.

 

Now I agree with the attribution from the die breaks at L and above 7 circled in red, but I now see something I can't explain when comparing Leadfoot's S-155 to the Holmes S-155, the lettering looks different at the bases of the uprights of every letter. There appears to be an indention below the bases of those uprights making the lettering more delicate and attractive in my opinion. The Leadfoot example is a later die state since the second break at L is present on the Leadfoot example, but is not on the Holmes example. The Holmes example appears flat at the bottoms of the uprights. I've used yellow pointers to show what I'm seeing. Now I've seen this before on a coin which was extremely well photographed. But this couldn't be separate punches on the same die so I'm a bit confused.

The marked up Leadfoot S-155:



The marked up Holmes S-155:

 

Die erosion?

 

I would think that would make more sense if yours was the earlier Die State. I'm baffled. To reduce the coins lettering relief (to make the indentions) would require adding mass to the die and re-hardening (or re-anelling (sic)) it, I think.

This is something I usually rely on EAC to explain. Now the question in my mind is how to get one of the minting process specialists to take it on as a project like they did with the cutdown Large Cent (former NC-6 turned NC-7 if I remember correctly) which was made into a Half Cent.

OK! I did a little research and this is my source:

http://www.icollector.com/1796-NC-7-R8-Draped-Bust-with-Stemless-Wreath-PCGS_i8599227

FYI, this was the Holmes Collection that icollector cataloged which I find extremely useful as an online resource on the Sheldon Varieties.

Respectfully,

Marshall EAC #1799 (for the third time as my membership has been on again off again a couple of times)

 

D'oh. :computer: You're right. Good point.

 

The indentation below the uprights of the letters is called bifurcation and is a result of the striking pressure not allowing the letter to fill completely. The last portion of the letter to fill is that area at the base of the uprights. The metal is trying to move outward radially and want to move outward into the upright before it wants to move upwards to finish filling the die.

A good example you can see in the Holmes catalog is on his S-157's. On his AU-58 the R is weakly bifurcated, the T more strongly and the Y even more so. And on the reverse the ED TATE are all bifurcated especially the ED, and the S is weak. Then look at his later state AU-50 and all of those letters are strong and well formed.

 

Thanks Conder.

 

Thanks for putting all this up for us to read.
I think this will be a good reference for future reading too.

 

Very nice work, Marshall ! Nice work indeed. Now if someone has decoded Breen's bizarre description of the difference 'twixt Reverse of 1797 and Reverse of 1799, I'm all ears.