Good afternoon! Here is one of my latest acquisitions. It is an 1816 large cent with a 90-degree rotated reverse. I think it is an N6 variety. I paid $30 for it at a local coin shop. How much would you price it? Lastly, are those rim cuds on the obverse? Enjoy!
Look at N-3. Plus the reverse leaf lettering does not seem to line up - and it can be tough on these worn coins. I am not exactly sure what a good price for this coin would be.
Shesh - everybody knows you can't call Sherlock Holmes. He is still in re-hab. But you can use sherlockgpt and get an answer like this: It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data, but the mechanics of the case are, in fact, elementary. You see, Watson, though both faces of the coin were struck at one and the exact sameinstantly, the phenomenon of the rotated die is a problem of alignment, not of timing. The anomaly occurs not during the strike, but through the frailty of the apparatus or the carelessness of the hands that set it. Consider the facts, my dear fellow: I. The Human Element The steel cylinders containing the designs—the dies—are perfectly round. When the pressman secures them into the machinery, he must align the upper and lower faces with precision. If the fellow is careless, or if the alignment notches upon the shank were ground inaccurately by the machinist, the dies are locked in crookedly from the very outset. Thus, every coin produced from that hour forward bears a stable and unvarying rotation. II. The Vibrations of the Engine The mechanical forces exerted by the screw presses of 1816 were immense, shaking the very foundations of the Philadelphia Mint. The dies were held fast by set screws. Now, observe the consequence of constant vibration: the screws loosen. The upper die—the hammer, as they call it—begins to shift and spin ever so slightly within its recess with each successive blow. This produces a dynamic rotation, wherein coins struck minutes apart exhibit entirely different degrees of displacement. III. The Official Indifference A minor deviation of fifteen or twenty degrees was frequently overlooked by the inspectors of the era, who valued quantity over absolute precision. The game is afoot! Tell me, Watson: Do you hold an 1816 copper cent in your possession? When you invert it, by how many degrees does the reverse design stray from the vertical? With these details, we may deduce whether you possess a common variant or a singular rarity.”
Crap - I forgot to say that the obverse rim cud looks exactly like what I see on mutliple examples of N-3 at heritage.
Not sure about west or a rim cud but it’s a nice coin at a decent price. Congratulations on the pickup.
I'd take that for 30 all day long. As for the rotated die.... out of the 60 or so LCs I have in my collection, at least 10 have rotations of 90 degrees or more. It was much more common with the old screw presses @mark_h you gave a great explanation TY sir
Nobody has put a number on it yet, so here are the actual closings rather than a feel. eBay sold listings, last 90 days, 30 results for 1816 large cent. I dropped the rows that are not comparable to yours by hand and will name them: five multi coin lots, three "random date 1816-1857" listings where the buyer does not choose the date, and one 1843 the search dragged in. Single 1816 cents, raw, grade as the seller stated it: $0.99 (12 Sep, auction), $2.00 (13 Sep), $4.95 (12 Sep, auction), $9.99 "looks F-VF" (14 Sep, auction), $22.50 (12 Sep, auction), $24.00 scored on back (15 Sep), $24.95 (11 Sep), $25.99 (10 Sep), $29.77 (11 Sep, auction), $29.95 (14 Sep), $29.95 (15 Sep), $30.00 VG (17 Sep), $59.00 best offer accepted (15 Sep), $66.92 N-7 Fine details (14 Sep, auction), $68.63 AU (16 Sep, auction), $78.00 (14 Sep). Slabbed: ICG VG8 Details env damage $45.00 (17 Sep), F-12 Details $74.99 (13 Sep), PCGS XF Details $175.00 (14 Sep). Range $0.99 to $175, median about $28 across the singles. So $30 at a shop counter sits right at the middle of the market. Not a steal, not a mistake. On the rotation, which is the part you actually asked about: there is exactly one dated comp in those 90 days, a 1816 coronet head with "45 DEGREE ROTATED DIE" in the title, and it closed at $13.95 on 14 Sep, below the median for plain ones. One sale is not a market and I am not going to pretend it is, but it is the only dated evidence in the window and it points away from a premium. On a circulated Matron head the rotation reads as a conversation piece. The people paying up for rotated dies are buying mint state, not a worn 1816. What would actually move your number is surface, not variety. Two lamps of free evidence, both of which you can do tonight with the phone you already photographed it with: Hold the coin under a single lamp at a low raking angle and look at the open field ahead of the face. Smooth chocolate brown keeps you in that $25 to $45 band. Granular like fine sandpaper is what a grader writes up as environmental damage, and that caps a raw one nearer $15 to $25. Worth noting the ICG VG8 Details env damage coin still brought $45 on 17 Sep against $30 for a raw VG on 17 Sep, so a Details holder is not the disaster people treat it as at this level. On the rim marks, the cheap test is raised versus pushed in. A cud is a piece of the die that broke away, so the metal sits proud of the field and is connected to the rim with no displaced metal around it. A rim bruise from a coin jar is pushed in and you will see the metal shoved sideways at the edges. Tilt it and see which way the light falls off. That one answers itself for free and it matters more to the price than whether it is N-3 or N-6 does at this grade.
