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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Publius2, post: 25538760, member: 105571&quot;]As [USER=101855]@johnmilton[/USER] said, there are just fewer of them that survived and even fewer in nice condition.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your coin is a struck a bit off-center on both obverse and reverse and overall is weakly struck (typical) but particularly so on the reverse through TED STATES.&nbsp; Could be due to dies that were not parallel when set up or due to off-center striking.&nbsp; The rim issue below the date has some aspects of a cud but is more likely to be an artifact of the off-center striking.&nbsp; I don&#039;t believe it is PMD.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now to the quality of those survivors.&nbsp; Like you, I searched for quite some time to find an acceptable example for my type set.&nbsp; Almost every one I saw was dark, porous, and weakly struck.&nbsp; I finally found an 1812 that was acceptable and paid a pretty penny for it in 2019.&nbsp; Large Date, S-288.&nbsp; Photo below.</p><p><br /></p><p>Excerpted from Q. David Bowers Guidebook of Half Cents and Large Cents:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Generally, the earlier dates are seen on light brown planchets and are somewhat casually struck, with many design details weak or absent.&nbsp; Cents of 1814 are often dark and porous...Lightness of striking is the rule for the vast majority of cents of this type...All planchets for these cents were imported from Boulton &amp; Watt of Birmingham, England, a firm well known for the excellent quality of its products...Craig Sholley suggests that either the Mint or Boulton &amp; Watt may have begun adding a lubricant to the planchet, or that the British supplier may have begun utilizing a different source, or different ore base, that contained impurities.&nbsp; Whatever the reason, extant coins for later Classic Head years tend to be dark, porous, or both.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1635807[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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