I have this 1819 Matron Head large cent. It's not a particularly rare date, mintage around 2.6 million, though it does currently hold the record for my earliest US coin. While gawking at it recently, I noticed that pretty much all of the denticles on the obverse look either unstruck or worn down inconsistently with the rim. But most of them remain intact on the reverse. Liberty's face also has wear that looks either like cleaning or sandblasting. The cheeks especially look baby butt smooth. Any thoughts on what happened to the Matronly Lady over the past few centuries?
There are nine die varieties for this coin. It is quite possible the missing denticles are the result of a weak die and wear. Someone that knows these die varieties would have to inform us to which variety you have. Your variety probably will show to have a weakness in the obverse denticles. Maybe even the lower stars to the left of liberty and the date. Still it is a nice coin.
There were never any denticals on one side of your coin. The lack of denticles on Large cents is very common. It probably is caused by all of the above - die wear, misaligned dies, etc. However, there are some varieties within particular dates that always are seen with this type of weakness in the same place so that is probably a "die" thing.
Your coin appears to be Newcomb-7, which is a R4 (very scarce) variety. Congrats! http://www.coinfacts.com/large_cent...ents/1819_large_cents/1819_large_cent_n07.htm
Wow, thanks for the information everyone. I would not have known how to find the variety of this piece, but it definitely looks like a Newcomb-7, at least from comparing pictures. All the photos I've seen so far of this variety are missing the denticles on the obverse, the feature that led me to post it here in the first place. The face also looks the same, etc. So this is an R4 on the Sheldon scale, meaning the population is estimated at 76-200? If that's true - I'm the cautiously optimistic type and I'd be curious to see if anyone disagrees with this identification - that's pretty astonishing considering that I just bought it out of one of those rotisserie display cabinets at a local shop. I liked the date, the price and the overall condition. The flip just says "1819 Lg. Cent." I paid a standard 1819 VF-20 Red Book price for the piece, but I wonder if it's leaning somewhat towards F? The surface color is also more of a reddish brown than the pallid grey shown above. My desk has an LED in the lamp, which seems to suck out all red from photos, so all of the coppers I snap look tombstone grey. In hand, and at certain angles to the light, the surface looks like a slightly faded copper red brown. Regardless of everything, I really like the piece and I bought it because I really liked the look and age of it. Once I examined it closely, I worried that I had overpaid for a problem coin infested with what I thought was strange wear and/or bad cleaning. Given everything, is this something I should consider slabbing?
Probably so, if only as a guarantee of authenticity. It's tough to assign a value to a coin which appears so rarely - Heritage has only 8 records of attributed examples, and PCGS shows 7 total in attributed slabs - but a VF20 example hammered at $376 in a Goldberg auction earlier this year. Yours is F15ish, to my mind.
Why is it gray and not brown? All of the large cents I have are brown. And some a more reddish/ copper color but not gray.
Yes, I addressed this in my rather long post above. My desk lamp uses an LED (or a compact fluorescent) which tend to eliminate the reds from photos. In hand, the coin has a reddish brown hue, much more like you would expect. I need to invest in a full spectrum bulb.
Attribution is correct. This was the second use of the obv die. First used on N-8 it shows crisp dentilation on the early die states but the denticals fade away in the later states. Then the worn die was used to create N-7 so they always come with worn away denticals.
I should not have it graded. It is F-15 max. Most dealers will sell as VF and many of them would have no clue to its variety as an R-4. No knowledgeable person will EVER question the authenticity of the coin so save your money. Oh, all of this is IMO. Furthermore, it looks corroded - 3 o'clock obverse and 6 o'clock reverse. The color is fine! As you wrote, it just looks gray due to the lighting.
Is there anything I can or should do about the corrosion? A recent CoinWeek video discussed lightly, very lightly, using a jeweler's brush on old copper with "Blue Ribbon" (a mixture of 1,1,1-Trichloroethane and mineral oil) for both restoration and protection. In addition, the video showed an 1800 half cent stored inside a flip, then inside a cotton lining and then inside a Polyethylene bag. I know the 1819 doesn't come anywhere near the value of an 1800 AU50 Half Cent, but I still want to preserve the coin the best way I can.
