1794 S-50 Liberty Cap Large Cent

Be very careful grading 94's from pictures grade websites. Each die was hand engraved with significant differences in details. The approach you are taking here, i can see berries and the ear, just does not work well on these as some varieties show much more detail when worn then other varieties.

With that said, it is an S50, the reverse die is the office boy reverse due to the less then stellar spacing. Unfortunately for collector's, this haphazardly done reverse die was quite long lived and outlasted six obverse dies. The obverse die diagnostics are basically the date, the 4 touches the bust while the 1 is clear of the hair. No question it's an S50.

Moving on to value get's harder. This is a rare variety, I think current estimates are in the 30-35 range with the tenth best coin grading around vg10, so it's rare and very very rare in nice condition. With that said, I would grade this coin pretty similar to the one sold in the Goldberg auction. The S50 has very strong hair details when struck. With this level of corrosion grading can be difficult, but I would put the sharpness grade in the same 15 range, maybe 20, by EAC standards, and I would net it to 6 for corrosion.

So 15 net 6 for corrosion. The last price guides I saw put a scudzy S50 in g5 at 450 and a scudzy s50 in vg8 at 900. I think that is a reasonable range for this coin. I would not worry about the holder, most of the people who are going to be interested in this coin, variety collectors, would just crack it out anyway. In fact, if it were my coin I would crack it out and leave it raw. One of the nice aspects of early copper collecting is that counterfeiters have not gotten die marriages correct, so a coin like yours has almost 0% chance of being counterfeit.

Lastly, nice coin, a very tough variety to find and this condition is representative of this variety when priced below the 'I could have bought a car' level.

 

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I appreciate the detailed answer. Its seems very informed. I will simply have to learn and research more to understand how informed. Very kind. You give me information to chase down.

 

If you are interested in this segment of collecting I would encourage you to join EAC, Early American coppers club. They also recently put out a book on grading early copper which is very helpful for understanding EAC grading on these coins. In fact, the page for liberty cap in F12 has an S50 which made the comparison pretty interesting.

 

Funny, I tried to do that a few days ago, but didn't get past the sign up process. I will try again. I couldn't print out the sign up sheet at work. I will do so at home (that was the hang-up). This is beginning to be an expensive past time...

 

How is the net conversion to 6 managed? I don't have access to any information currently, as to how that is achieved.

 

Net grading is basically your sense of how much to deduct from the coin due to flaws. There is no standard per se, but there are some general guidelines. Basically, you are trying to compare problem coins with non-problem coins. So, for the same amount of money at what point would you take your coin over a problem free example. The 15 net 6 grade indicates that I would pay the same amount for a problem free 6 and your coin. That's the basics, when it comes to coins like yours, considered scudzy, they sell for a significant reduction compared to problem free. So your coin at 15 net 6 would be in the $700 range while a problem free 6 would be in the $3,000 range.

For me, the higher the original sharpness grade, the more I deduct for problems. Man made problems, like scratches/dings, get a higher deduction then natural ones, like corrosion. For your coin, I see sever corrosion, cleaning, and that active green corrosion. The corrosion alone would knock the grade around half, add in how unattractive the corrosion and cleaning are and I take a couple more off. Mainbill posted a nice 94 a couple weeks ago showing a coin with pretty sever corrosion while also being very attractive, so there are no hard and fast rules.

 

Funny, eye of the beholder. I too wondered about the cleaning. Yet I found the appearance better that the bulk of the coins I could found in an under 3K price range. Additionally, the rare factor (30-75 known) was much higher that coins going for 500-1000 with barely perceptible dates and features. I am hoping that the pic didn't to the coin justice, and amplified the flaws.
Thanks for playing an open hand. These large coppers certainly are much different that the small cents. Grading, and the growing pains of the mint. I gave this coin the benefit of my doubt, because of the reported lower quality copper available to make them during the Philadelphia (very small) mint at the time.

 

Thanks for taking the critique of your coin well. The pictures may do the coin some injustice. Ebay is a tough place to find 18th century copper coins, I find a lot of them to be the lower quality stuff which doesn't do well in auction house sales, or priced too high. The nicer stuff tends to be in larger auctions, like the goldberg sale that just ended, or with copper dealers. Honestly, some of the copper dealers who specialize in area have nice coins at reasonable prices.

Here is the link to Mainebill's coin that I was mentioning. You can see it has corrosion, but a very natural patina which is not distracting. I find this to be a very attractive coin in spite of the corrosion:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/most-affordable-1700s-us-coin.257040/#post-2045353

Totally eye of the beholder with these coins. A lot of early collectors have a strong preference against certain problems, like rim dings. Other's don't like scratches. Some want a nice surface and color, but don't mind some minor dings/scratches. It's personal Like I said, nice coin. It's very rare, and has a good amount of meat left details wise.

 

That is a nice coin.