I have been gradually forming a year set of cents from 1793 to date. The "biggest bear of all" is the 1799 cent. This coin started to become famous when a famous 19th century collector, Joseph Mickley, had trouble finding one. It happened that 1799 was his birth year. That started the search, and the coin has been famous and expensive since then. There is a normal date (S-189) and an overdate (S-188). This is the normal date. The slab grade is VG-10. EAC people would probably call it a Good-4. This coin presents a number of challenges. First, there is evidence that the coin blanks (planchets) arrived from England with black toning on them. They may have been exposed to sea water. Many were cleaned at the mint, but it didn't take long for the virgin copper that was exposed to tone again. Second, the dies were often misaligned which resulted in uneven strikes. Third there were no collectors in America in the early 1800s. The finest known example has a PCGS grade of MS-61. The EAC people call it AU-50. The best one has sold for close to $1 million. That piece was found and imported from England. This coin has a die chip below the "E" in "ONE." This a marker for 1799 cents even in very low grade. I saw a veteran dealer pay $1,600 for raw piece that had no readable date. I've seen asking prices of over $3,000 for very low grade slabbed pieces. The bottom line is these don't come cheap. I don't buy very many low grade coins, but this is an exception.
Nice coin, and an even better write up (as usual). Thanks for sharing. Please keep us posted with the date set progress. You always seem to pick the challenging endeavors.
Yes, this the hardest and most expensive date. The other one is the 1804. I had the 1793s from my type set.
