Show and tell: Fun with attributing an 1804 Draped Bust Half Cent

Longtime reader, first-time poster.

I see there are some other people here who are also interested in collecting die varieties of Draped Bust Half Cents (1800-1808), so I thought I’d share a neat coin I recently found unattributed, “in the wild” recently. Personally, I love playing amateur detective and deducing the Sheldon or Cohen variety of an old copper, and in case you do, too, I’ll first post the pics, then the diagnostic features of the die variety, and finally the Cohen variety at the end of this post (so “spoiler”at the end).

So I called a coin dealer and told him I like early American copper coins, but that I’m on a budget, say no more that $200 per coin. He tells me he has a few, and shows me the following coin in an unmarked 2 x 2 holder:







OK, let’s start with the most obvious things and work up to the more arcane points:

-It’s a lower-grade Draped Bust Half Cent, but many of the details are still pretty well preserved. Hard for me to know what grade to assign it, but I think at least a G-4, and maybe some details are VG, though the left side of the coin seems to be much more worn than the right (more on this later…).

-It’s dated 1804. The “4” in the date is much sharper than the other numerals and you can just about make out the “0” (and, well, this can’t be a 1904 Half Cent).

-The wreath on the reverse has stems coming out of the bottom.

-The “4” on the date has a “crosslet” (a little vertical line at the end of the horizontal stroke). This detail is not so clear from the photos I posted, but if you had the coin in your hands and could look at it closely from the right angle, this would be fairly clear. (Also, the other details below will confirm the die variety even if you don’t believe me about the crosslet.)

OK, so now we have identified the Red Book variety: “1804 crosslet 4, stems” (and not a “spiked chin” variety). Now the real fun begins as we try to figure out the Cohen variety, which, given the above, could be C-1, C-2, C-4, C-9, or C-10.

So I compared my coin with high-resolution pictures of these varieties from the PCGS, on this page: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1804-1-2c-crosslet-4-stems-bn/1069

-First look closely at the position of the 4 in the date. It is clearly not a “high 4” almost touching the bust (check out a picture of the C-1 on the PCGS page for comparison).

The “low 4” varieties (C-2 and C-4) are pretty scarce, and first you should carefully compare with the 4 in the C-9 variety, which is only “somewhat high” and looks similar. But comparing the relative position of the horizontal stroke in the 4 and the zero in the date, we see this is indeed a “low 4”

So it’s a C-2 or a C-4.

-To tell whether it’s a C-2 or C-4, look at the fraction in the reverse. Note that the numerals on the denominator are unevenly spaced, with the 0’s closer together and the 2 further apart, and a bit crooked (“cross-eyed zeroes”). This means it must be a C-2 variety, since the C-4 has more evenly-spaced numerals and an “equidistant numerator” (the bottom of the 1 in the numerator is about as far from the fraction bar as the top of the 1 is from the bottom of the wreath). Also the 0’s in the C-4 variety are larger and widely-spaced, so this isn’t a close call.

So it seems to be a C-2, which I’ve read to be R-6, with under 30 specimens known (according to Ed Fuhrman's The Half Cent Handbook)!

-“Beware of finding what you’re looking for,” as they say, so I check the details again. Maybe it’s a commoner variety, or maybe even a counterfeiter has retooled the “4”? But I doubt it, since there are so many other minute details that match up with the pictures of known C-2 specimens. E.g. look ad the “cud” die break on the obverse between the E and Y of LIBERTY, and also the die scratch in the field in front of Liberty’s face, both of which are well-known die defects of this variety (not all C-2’s have the cud and this would be from the latest die state).

Also, it is known that the right half of the C-2’s was struck more strongly than the left half because for some reason the dies were not quite parallel in the minting process. So the seemingly well-worn left half of the date was weakly struck, and the relatively sharp “4” is yet more evidence that it’s a C-2.

Opinions as to the grade? Apologies for the pics, which don't capture the details well, maybe I can post better images later. Think it will be straight-graded when I send it to PCGS? There are a couple of surface blemishes, not sure if that's verdigris.

Anyways, as a cherrypicker on a modest budget, I’m telling myself that this is probably as good as it gets. I will probably have to look for many more years before finding something this special again.

 

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Lucky you. I tried to get all 12 of the 1804 half cent die varieties, but could never find this one. I knew a couple of big collectors who had multiple examples of it, but they weren't selling. I had the other 11 pieces, included a cherry picked C-7.

The late Jim McGuigan finally got one that was a ground salvage piece. It wasn't bad for what it was, but the price was $7,000. That was a ton of money for me 35+ years ago. I had it saved, but I had a choice. I buy this rather unattractive half cent or I could buy this 1804 quarter eagle. I bought the gold coin. That was the beginning of the end of my half cent die variety collecting days.



As for grading you piece, that is hard to do from the pictures. They are too dark. If the piece is undamaged and only weak because the dies were not aligned properly in the coin press, I would say VG. If it's pitted and other surface issues, the net grade would be something lower, but probably no lower than Good 4.

EAC grading is an enigma to me. It's ultra conservative, but when it comes the pricing, the numbers are very high. I know dealers who think it's a bunch of foolishness, and I tend to agree.

If you are buying and selling, you have to work within the current market standards. You don't go nuts overgrading everything, but if you are ultra conservative and don't adjust your prices upward for that, you only be picked off. Some old time dealers used "under grade and over price" as a marketing strategy.

 

Thanks for sharing! That's a nice quarter eagle, even if I, personally, would never trade a scarce copper for a similarly-valued gold piece. (Just my style, I prefer collecting scarcities that fly under the radar, even if I did have the budget to collect gold coins.)

I am now appreciating how hard it is to take decent photos of coins without professional equipment, which is another reason I'm going to have my coin slabbed: that way I will have good photos of my piece. I *think* it doesn't have what would be called "damage:" at least it's not bent, punctured, corroded, graffitied, or heavily scratched. The surface has some nicks and a few blemishes esp. around the bows on the reverse) but I don't know, I don't have much experience handling old coppers (yet).

 

Congratulation on this awesome find! I'm glad my book helped you! If you are a member of my Facebook group you should also post this there. The members will love seeing this. Very rare piece you have there. And it is one of the better examples, believe it or not. Most are in far worse shape. Your photo is a little out of focus, but it would likely grade G-6+ or VG-7. The left side weakness makes it appear to be a lower grade than it actually is. So you need to grade from the better struck areas. Congrats once again.