For many years, US Large Cents have been a fascination for me. What started as a general curiosity turned into a full blown addiction. I began studying everything I could get my hands on to learn about these early US coins. I was introduced to the Sheldon varieties of these US cents by a few well informed web sites (Including Coin Talk). I was told time and time again to get Sheldon's "Penny Whimsy" for further study and reference. With a limited budget, I was on the hunt to find one. I happened across a listing on another website where someone was selling their copy of Penny Whimsy for $20. I communicated with this person, and I purchased it from them. The original owner of the book is Craig Sholley. If you google his name, you will find that he is a well respected man in the Numismatic field, with many written papers and articles. One of his writings to me, he said the following: "In fact, I used it not too long ago to debunk a claim that two varieties of 1800 were the same. Sheldon was dead nuts on that several reverses of 1798 - 1801 had been hubbed and that you could only tell the difference by very careful study - something not clearly pointed out in later texts such as the Noyes books. " He kindly offered to sign the book for me! Such a nice man. I feel honored to have a piece of numismatic history such as this!
