United States: 1804 copper Draped Bust half cent, "Spiked Chin" variety

United States: 1804 copper Draped Bust half cent, "Spiked Chin" variety

PCGS XF40. Cert. #44307721.

Numista-16948, Krause-Mishler-33.

Mintage: 1,055,312 (for all 1804 varieties combined).

Ex-David Lawrence Rare Coins, Inventory #696898, 27 February 2022. Purchased in the slab.

I love the Draped Bust US coins from the late 1700s and the first decade of the 1800s. This particular 1804 half cent is of the "Spiked Chin" variety. I previously owned a PCGS VF20 example of this variety, but sold it around 2013. So this current XF40 example represents an upgrade over the previous coin. I just like this variety.

Per Ron Guth on PCGS Coinfacts:

"The 1804 Spiked Chin Half Cent is an interesting variety caused when damage occurred to an obverse die, resulting in a sharp, spike-like projection jutting out from Liberty's chin. The Spiked Chin itself is considered a die state, because examples from the same obverse die are known without the damage. However, the Spiked Chin obverse was used in combination with more than one reverse, so it is also known as a die variety. The Spiked Chin Half Cent is fairly common, but it commands a premium because of its listing as a major variety in most (if not all) price catalogs."

I've read speculation that the foreign object that caused the damage to the die might have been a metal screw, which resulted in the spike-like protrusion from Liberty's chin and also the parallel striations seen in the right obverse field, which I mistook for a fingerprint the first time I saw them on my previous coin. These striations are in the metal, and are actually a feature seen on most Spiked Chin half cents, so they're certainly not a fingerprint. Perhaps they were caused by the threads on the screw that damaged the die, if in fact that was the sort of object that caused the anomaly.




055000

 

It does look like that, doesn't it? LOL