Well, here's a large cent type I've never owned before... until now. This is the first of the several varieties of Coronet/Matron Head cents, and the one with perhaps the most "severe" portrait style. Feel free to share your own large cent coins as you please. This is an interesting large cent for me, and one I've wanted to own for a long time. As beautiful as the braided hair large cents are...and I happen to think they are the best of the large cents...these earlier large cents have a unique beauty of their own which I admire.
The design started to change in the mid 1830s when Christian Gobrecht started experimenting with new designs. A couple of decades latter, coin dealers gave them colorful names like "Silly Head" and "Booby Head." I am only collecting one cent per year, but I can show a few pictures from my collection and my dealer archives. Original Matron Head 1836 Large Cent 1839 Booby Head 1840 Large Cent Gobrecht had thing for placing dates out of the alignment sometimes. A nice Braided Hair Cent.
Hey, that's perfect timing on this! I just picked up this 1796 Liberty Cap cent today. It doesn't exactly fit into my albums I'm trying to fill out (although I could make it fit in one) but I just really wanted it because I think these are just the coolest design I've seen on any US standard coinage. (Edit to add: except for Fugio cents... those are awesome but too far out of my price range for the time being)
That 55 is a really nice example of one of these. I stumbled upon this toned MS-63BN at a show for my US type set. Has nice luster left. Went to the show looking for 3 or 4 other items and went home with this.
