About a year ago I decided to start collecting coins again after about Ten years of not collecting. I have been Trying to decide what to collect and after a lot of studying and looking at the different series And looking at LEADFOOT's Very Nice Large cent collection, and Purchasing a few books and auction catalogs I have fell In Love with the old Coppers. They have a lot of variety's and every one is different even ones with the same date and grade has a character of it's own.No two look the same. Since I don't have a lot Knowledge on these yet I was Hoping some of you Experienced Large Cent Collectors might offer some Good Advice? (hey Leadfoot) Such as what is the best way to store them? Books to read? What is the best attributing Guide? I bought Howard Newcombs United States Cooper Cents and Sheldon's Penny Whimsy,But they are hard to use. ANY HELP GREATLY APPRECIATED THANKS
The Newcomb book is a really great reference guide, but I don't know much about the Penny Whimsy yet. My Large Cents are just stored in 2x2's in a box. It's up to you as to what series of Large Cents you want to collect and concentrate on.
Consider joining Early American Coppers. I have a couple of books by Noyes that show large and detailed pictures of all the varieties 1793-1814 and 1816-1839.
Are you planning on collecting very early large cents? If so I can recommend a very good and honest dealer who specializes in them.
Here are the must haves for attribution: . Grellman for Late Dates . Wright for Middle Dates . Breen for Early Dates Also suggested reading: . Both of the Noyes titles (early & middle). . Sheldon . Newcomb Auctions: . Rasmussen at Heritage . Reiver at Heritage Personally, I store my raw large cents in a Dansco Album in my safe deposit box with plenty of silica dessicant. 2x2's and Airtites both work very well too. Also consider joining EAC. Hope this helps...Mike
If you collect by varieties you'll never run out of ones to collect, lol. All the books mentioned above good for that. Would go with some of the later ones to get the ball rolling.
Please post the recommendation - I love checking the early dates out. And who knows he might have something I really want. Right now I am concentrating on my IHC, but I should have those knocked out by the end of the year.
Are the Dansco albums date sets or are they, or do any Albums have holes for the Red Book Varieties? Also do the Dansco Brown colored Pages clash with the Brown Coins? THANKS, Ed
I'll fetch them from the bank and take some pics soon.... I think the brown on brown look is attractive. The Dansco Large cent album has fewer dates/vareties than the redbook. Here are the dates in it: 1793 Chain 1793 Wreath 1793 Liberty Cap 1794 1795 1796 Liberty Cap 1796 Draped Bust 1797 1798 1799 Normal Date 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 Normal Date 1825 1826 Normal Date 1827 1828 1829 Large Letters 1829 Med. Letters 1830 Large Letters 1830 Med. Letters 1831 Large Letters 1831 Med. Letters 1832 Large Letters 1832 Med. Letters 1833 1834 1834 Lg. 8, stars & Rev. Ltrs. 1834 Sm. 8 & stars, med. Ltrs. 1834 Lg. 8, sm. Stars, med. Ltrs. 1834 Sm. 8, lg. Stars, med. Ltrs. 1835 Lg. 8 & Stars 1835 Sm. 8 & Stars 1835 “head of 1836” 1836 1837 Pl. crd., med. Ltrs. 1837 Pl. crd., sm. Ltrs. 1837 “head of 1838” 1838 1839 1839 Head of 1838, beaded cord 1839 Silly Head 1839 Booby Head 1839 Petite Head 1840 Large Date 1840 Small Date 1841 Small Date 1842 Small Date 1842 Large Date 1843 Petite, sm. Ltrs. 1843 Petite, lg. Ltrs 1843 Mature, lg. Ltrs. 1844 Normal Date 1844 over 81 1845 1846 Sm. Date 1846 Md. Date 1846 Tall Date 1847 1847 7 over “sm.” 7 1848 1849 1850 1851 Normal Date 1851 over 81 1852 1853 1854 1855 Upright 5's 1855 Slanting 5's 1855 Slanting 5's knob on ear 1856 Upright 5 1856 Slanting 5 1857 Large Date 1857 Small Date Alternatively, you could get a generic Dansco and blank large cent pages and make a set of your own design (like a date set or a redbook variety set or whatever). There are also nice display options with Airtites. Hope this helps...Mike
Well, I don't believe he has a website, but his name is Christopher Young, and his business is Chesapeake bay rare coins. If you ever see a dealer at a show with long hair and a long beard, that looks just like Jesus, that is probably him. Super nice guy.
Most EACers store their coins in 2X2 envelopes with cotton liners. There are several good books For the early dates Sheldon's Penny Whimsey is excellent. The Noyes Book on the early dates is also excellent but it should be, much of the text was lifted from Sheldon. For the middle dates I would recommend The Cent Book by John Wright but Noyes book on the middle dates is also quite good. For the late dates you want United States Large Cents 1840 - 1857 by Robert Grellman. For attribution guides I would recommend the same books with a few warnings. You say your Penny Whimsey is hard to use. My bet is you have a 1990 edition. I'm afraid that edition is a piece of junk. The text in PW is almost identical in all of the editions but the plates vary greatly My favorites are the 1958 or 65 editions. The plates are clear and detailed. Although a lot of people like the 1976 edition I find the plates to be overexposed, burned out and too light. I don't know enough about the 81 edition to comment on it. But the 1990 edition has the plates way underexposed and they tend to look like featureless black circles. Especially on the plates of the NC varieties discovered since 1958. The Newcomb book can be used for the middle dates but it isn't the easiest to use, For the late dates it is completely useless. Another good attribution guide for 1816 - 1834 is a Guide by Rod Burress. It should still be available from him. Something else I would recommend if you can find it would be to locate a copy of the Sept 1986 Superior auction of the Robinson S Brown collection and/or the 1989 sale of the Jack Robinson collection. (I referr to my copies constantly. So much that they are falling apart into individual pages. I have two back up copies of each for when they finally wear out completely, plus I have the hardbound copies of both.) There are other books I could recomend but they are basicly earlier references of the varieties and are mainly interesting as a historical item. I would also agree that if you are serious about large cents, a membership in EAC is reccommended. And if they ever get around to it, they are supposed to eventually be supplying to the membership a CD of the entire set of back issues of the clubs journal Penny-Wise. Almost fourty years worth of articles, 12,000 pages.
That is funny....I know a guy by that name and he wouldn't look anything like you said...and he is a computer geek! Speedy
. Is the one by J. R. Grellman and Jules Reiver the same? . Mine is the 65 edition, Maybe I just need more experience using it. THANKS, ED
Yes that is the late date book. There have been two editions. The first was a looseleaf version that had both authors. I didn't know if the second hardbound edition had both or not. It is normally just referred to as being by Grellman so I wasn't sure if Reiver was involved with the second edition. If you are having problems with the 65 edition then it is probably a matter of practice, Either that or you are trying to attribute very low grade coins (when Sheldon wrote the book coins in Fine were cheap and his descriptions were usually taken from Fine or better coins. Lower grades may have some of the diagnostic features missing. Practice helps with this.) Or you are trying to attribute 1798's or 1800's which still give me fits after over 20 years. Of couse I'm normally doing very low grade coins and the fact that many of the 98's and all of the 1800's reverses were made from the same hub,
Well To be honest I have not purchased an Early date yet. I have just been trying to practice with pictures on E bay and other sites and most of them are low grade and pictures are probably hard to go by anyway. Because of The FUNDING factor any early date I could afford would be very low grade. THANKS, ED
