Hello everyone! It's Monday again and a new thread called simply, " Matron Head Monday", large cents. Please post yours as well ..... (ALSO!! It's AUGUST 26th. My wife and I are celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary. . Just kidding). WooHooo!!! Thanks for viewing and sharing! This is my 1816 dug and 1817(non dug) Matron Large Cents.
One of only two I own; other is ungraded. Bright RD MS large cent has perpetually been on my wish list.
Here's an 1818. And a 1839 Modified Matron Head, the Booby Head variety of the so-called "Young Head" design. When I bought the latter, I received the hand-notated envelope from before the coin was slabbed. It is the N-13 die pair, incidentally, since I just noticed I didn't label the photos as such. Breen called the Matron Head ugly but I don't agree with that judgement. It's not as attractive as the Draped Bust or even the Capped Bust IMHO but not ugly. Now the US has minted some truly ugly coins, again solely in my opinion, but I will decline to name those here so no one's feelings will be hurt. Nice article in the latest Numismatist by Bill Eckberg on the Scott/Reich "who designed it" question.
Funny you say that, because I second guessed myself when I was posting. I thought (and I could be completely wrong; please correct/educate me) that "Matron head" was the overarching type, whereas Coronet, Braided, etc. were the types assigned to specific years. Guess I should've double checked the almighty Red Book first Edit: quick review of my trusty Red Book confirmed I was a bit wrong. Classic Head > 1800-1814 Liberty Head > 1816-1857 + Matron Head > 1816-1835 + Matron Head Modified; aka Young Head > 1835-1839 + Braided Hair > 1839-1857 I was thinking of the overarching 'Liberty Head,' which includes both 'Matron Head' and 'Braided Hair.'
Here's my best Matron Head Cent. This one is graded higher as an MS-66. It's not quite as good. This one was a wedding gift from my wife. Here is an 1916. And an 1819 And a better date, an 1821, which is not as nice as the others. Some day I might complete a date set of large cents ... or not. The grades will be very uneven ranging from Mint State to probably a VG.
dc did a 1815.. this one was described as a DC at auction when i bought it. since then Dan has seen this one and says it is not one of his production... the other 2 are real