1796 Large Cents - Some of the coins in my set will be lower grades.

1796 is one of the very cool dates among early U.S. coins. It was the only year in which it is possible to collect a year set of coins in all 10 of the denominations that were authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. Furthermore some collectors believe that there were "presentation" or specimen coins produced so that one could form a "1796 Proof set." Be advised that just getting all ten of the coins in any condition is quite an undertaking. The half cent, quarter, half dollar and the gold coins are all very scarce to rare.

I have been working on a date set of cents from 1793 to date. After looking at a number of coins and having been "chasened" by the prices, I decided to drop back a bit for the 1796 cents. Both the Liberty Cap and the Draped Bust designs were issued that year. I found this Draped Bust piece at the recent FUN show. It is a raw, ungraded coin. The die variety is an S-102, which is rated as an R-4, 76 to 200 known. It is believed that these coins were made in the fall of 1796.



I had though about purchasing an example of the 1796 Cap Cent after I had finished the date set. The Cap Cent is much scarcer than the Draped Bust pieces, especially in high grade. I spotted this piece at Lakeland and decided to buy it. It's not a great coin, but it cost less than $1,000 which suited my pocketbook and my objectives. These coins were struck in April and May of 1796. This piece is an S-81. As a variety it is a little more common than the Draped Bust piece above.



The weakness on the reverse is not unusual for these pieces. For whatever reason designer / die maker, Robert Scot, decided to make the bust of liberty in higher relieve than it had been for the 1795 Liberty Cap cents. The result was there was not enough metal to fill both dies which often resulted in weaknesses in the cent of the obverse nad reverse.

There was also an MS-61 graded piece on the floor. It was weak in the centers with the word "CENT" not fully defined. The price was more than 20 times what I paid for this one.

 

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Thank You. Always learning from you.
As far as the design, I prefer the "Draped Bust". I don't know why. Gee.

 

A very nice post and the coins are great.

 

LOL........and along those lines the Type I SLQs are hotter too.

 

I love em both

 

Always dreamed of owning a Flowing Hair someday.

 

When I lived in New Jersey, back in the 1970s, a friend of a friend had a 1796 Cap cent which was part of a family hoard. It was really quiet. The sharpness grade was VF, as memory serves. The trouble was he had tried to “improve it” by shining it. His method of restoration was polishing it by ribbing the coin on a carpet.

 

I am composing a document for my heirs on how to dispose of my collection. I have a section titled "Do's and Dont's" and here's an excerpt:

 

Nice. 1796 a great date for availability of type. If you have really deep pockets between the half cent quarter and half. But then you have 2 of the toughest coins for a complete type set

 

This is the closest I come to coins like that, but I still love this one. The 18th century half cents are very tough.

 

Good idea. This is why I send my better coins off to be graded, even though ANACS doesn't get the hype the other big two do, it gives it credibility and keeps the grubby mitts off them. When I purchase a really nice coin, I'm pretty paranoid of getting greasy fingerprints on them or dropping them.

 

Man, you all have some awesome pieces. I would love to have an 18th century cent, but my financial situation does not allow at this time.

Someday.

 

Very cool pair of cents!

 

The first one I owned was in the early 1960s. It was a 1794. It had a fairly nice obverse, which graded VG or so, but the reverse was virtually blank.

It's hard to find 1794 and '95 cents with a full reverse. The lettering was delicate and it was not protected by a raised rim as it is on modern coins. You cand see how vulnerable the lettering was on this Mint State piece.

 

That is a beautiful cent.

I do so love alot of the old designs on our coinage.

I really wish the mint would do restrikes of some of the original coinage of America for the 250th anniversary, perhaps in a mint set format (with a large cent, in copper), so that it could be affordable to the public. We already pay substantial premiums for the mint sets.

Even a general circulation minting (1776-2026) would be neat to me, although I know it would be a very expensive undertaking.

 

Even though the 1796 draped bust cent has a mintage three times that of the 96 caps, I have always found the Liberty caps to be much easier to find, although you could be right about them being tougher in high grade. As varieties the caps are also more common, 11 varieties as compared to 35 for the draped busts, and most of the draped bust coins are of higher rarity. 22 of them are R-5 or better. (R-5 31 to 75 pieces known) Only 7 bust varieties are R-3 while 5 of the caps are (No 1796 cent is less than an R-3). And this is a big change from back when I stated collecting them. Back then the cap rarities were about the same as they are now, while only 1 draped bust was an R-3, the S-110. I now have all of the Sheldon numbered varieties, and 3 of the 7 NC varieties.