Hello fellow coin peeps! I was just looking at my 1809 Half Cent, and remembered I had never finished the mystery on what was under that nine. I do see something, and hopefully you will see it in my pictures. I looked in the price guide, and I saw no over dates for the year of 1809. I am thinking there could be a 6 under it? Many Thanks!
You need to take the coin outside, in the shade, so as to use diffused sunlight to eliminate using the flash and so you can get closer to the coin for a close-up shot with no shadows. Then we can see it better. Ribbit
What he needs to do is take it out of the 2X2 before taking the picture to eliminate the reflection from the plastic. From looking at my notes on half cents (don't have the books here so no pictures to compare it to) It isn't a C-6 or C-3 because those varieties have the space between the 8 & 0 much wider than the space between the 0 & 9. (1 1/2 and twice the width respectively.) On C-1, 2, 4 the width is the same and on C-5 the space between the 0 & 9 is slightly greater. But the differences are very small so we move on to the next checkpoint, the Point of Leaf (POL) below the last S in STATES. On C-1 it doesn't quite reach the right edge of the S. On this coin it is past the right edge so that eliminates C-1, On C-3 the POL almost reaches the O in OF. I think we can toss that one. C-2 and C-5 both have the POL about 1/4 letters width right of the edge of the S. That fits. Lets move to the third checkpoint the POL below the F in OF. On C-2 the POL is below the edge of the right foot of the F. On C-5 it is well right of the right foot. Looks like a C-5 to me. And the C-5 is the 1809/6.
Conder (as usual) is correct, take out of 2x2 to get a better picture, and I agree it looks like a 9/6.
