This is the last variety I needed for my Classic Head Half Cent Set (1809-1836) As you can see from the label it's a Cohen-1, the rarest of the 1809 varieties. Yes, it's graded "Genuine" but an original VF would have cost me close to 10x what this one cost. There are 23 coins in the business strike variety set. There are 5 more in the complete set that I don't have but they are proofs, and I don't collect proofs. The light foggy area on the center of the reverse is NOT on the coin; it's on the slab and in a place I can't get to, the inside. I think I'll get PCGS to reslab it -- free of course.
Yeh, it is. I need to dig out my info about how to determine the amount of rotation. I carefully stored the directions away which means that there's a good chance I won't find it by looking. I'll stumble upon it some time while looking for something else
Update and Something Extra The Update: I looked closely (9x loupe) and the "light foggy area on the center of the reverse" is definitely NOT on the coin BUT definitely NOT on the inside of the slab. It's on the outside (thank you, thank you, thank you ). I got out my Novis polishing material and with only a slight application of elbow grease I removed the problem area. Now the "Something Extra". One of the PUP's for this variety are the die engraver's guide lines he used to get features neatly on the die. Notice the one in front of the bottom of the "O" and the two after the top and bottom of the "F". I've never seen that before and suspect that it would be a feature only on early coins. The only other thing I know of that's sort of close to this is centering dots on a lot of early coins.
The center dot is where to point of the compass/scribe was placed and then used to create the layout arcs for the letter placement. So yes they are related.
