At a minimum I'd like to ID the Red Book variety. But if someone can do the Sheldon Number that would be great. According to my reference there are 65 varieties!!! Give me a week and I might work it out. I got as far as 5/6 berries (I think). But someone familiar with these coins would be a great help. The images are large (about 4000kb) each.
I love your coin, much better than mine. I posted mine here years ago and someone identified it but I failed to write it down. If I can find out about it a second time, I promise to write it down...
beautiful coin. I am no help on this one. Lots of folks on here will easily ID your coin in that condition. Nice die cracks! After further review I think its an S-26 after some sleuthing
Yours is S-26. Very distinctive obverse die with the date widely spaced 1 7 94. This obverse was paired with four reverses, two of which are NCs. The berry positions to the left of the bow, the die crack, among several other things, confirms the S-26 attribution. The reverse is key. The A in STATES is tilted left. This reverse was only used on S-55, or the “Crazy A” variety.
Counting the berries and leaves is a terrible method and a waste of your time. The numbers are just a formality to document every single unique characteristic of each die. Start with the distance of the R of LIBERTY is from the hair. That will quickly narrow it down to 20 or so varieties. Then look at the hair curl and the date position. That generally narrows down to 4 or fewer varieties. THEN go into berry/leaf number and relationships to narrow it down to one variety. 1794 has 74 die pairs. At least 46 of the dies have uniquely-identifiable characteristics that are obvious even in low grade, and these instantly narrow down the variety to 4 or fewer varieties with one exception. This isn’t even including die cracks. That is the best way to navigate the 1794 varieties.
Once again, thanks to all who took the time to work out the Sheldon number. BTW, NGC has it graded XF-45 BN.
I figured based on what appeared to be remnants of luster on the reverse. EAC grade is probably 40 net 35.
Here are the PCGS grading-guide pix for this type. I think PCGS would call your coin a VF-35. That's a REALLY nice coin you have there!
Yeh, that's something I have to learn. I'm now an EAC member so I have to at least become reasonably familiar with net grading. Breaking the TPG habit will not be easy.
EAC standards for coppers tend to follow my own standards. I have generally always ignored the TPG grade for early large cents because they are so inconsistent and often flat-out wrong in grades above VG. They tend to be better for half cents and post-1814 large cents.
Sorry, but I see a lot more than a 5 point grading difference between those two coins. The first one is more like an VF-25 while the second one is a very solid EF-40 with claims to a higher grade. As for the OP coin, I see than as an EAC grade VF-25 or 30, but maybe I have been around Bill Noyes too long.
Very attractive coin. Please keep it and pass it on to keep it in your family. Great historical value.
