Hello, I am new to coin collecting. I inherited my grandfather's collection of large cents and quickly have gotten myself hooked. One of the coins I have is an 1804 large cent. I don't believe that it is authentic but I was wondering if anyone could help me with what it actually is. It does seem to have age to it, color is off from what I've seen in large cents. Any help would be appreciated.
1804 is one of the rarest and most valuable years for the Draped Bust Large Cent (Penny) series. There are many fakes out there. The real ones will always have a crosslet "4" in the 1804 date. The crosslet is a vertical slash through the right-side end of the "4". There are also "restrike" varieties of this coin which were produced years later and do not have the crosslet "4". These restrikes will also have severe cracks due to cracked dies. - See more at: http://www.usacoinbook.com/coins/146/large-cents/draped-bust/1804-P/#sthash.jPNZZJ6M.dpuf
So unless you are extremely lucky I would say just a fake or copy as the date in your picture doesn't look right -
Yes thank you for this. I had found that site too. It does "appear" to actually have the crosslet 4 (hard to see in the picture) but I still don't think its real. I was actually more asking what type of a fake it may be. There is no seam on the side.
Yeah pic is hard to tell but also the rest of the date looks rounded instead of flattened like the real coin. Plus if picture shows true color then seems to be a copper plated silver colored coin. And as far as what type of fake, who knows. I'm sure someone on CT will know!
