The finest 1834 N-2 cent?

Next up - 1834. The 1834 cent I was looking to upgrade was purchased raw from an ANR auction a few years ago. It's an N-2 that I got into an NGC slab as MS64BN, pretty much as expected. It's a nice coin, with interesting color on the reverse, but subdued obverse luster and a few minor marks.

Prior to the Goldberg's auction of the Naftzger middle dates, I had picked out four candidate 1834s I thought I'd have a shot at getting. I figured the MS67BN N-4 would be out of reach. It was - hammering at $15,500, plus juice. The prime target was an MS66RB N-1 with a low estimate of $4000. I dropped out shortly after that amount, and it finally sold for $22,000, plus juice. The big lesson for that lot, and the whole session in general, is that significant red usually commands a big premium.

There were three MS66BN N-2 coins in the sale. The first and second of the three were tied at CC#2 in the Bland census, and tied at CC#1 in the Noyes census. The third one appears in the Noyes census tied at CC#4. I was after the first one. At lot viewing it was plain to me that it was the best of the three, followed by the third and then the second - all in agreement with the order of EAC style grades assigned by McCawley & Grellman for the catalog. The round robin got going again, and I feared I would lose it. But my pre-determined maximum bid came on my turn, and that was it!

Had I failed to get that lot, my next target was another MS66BN, this one an N-3. It sold for 20% less than mine, but I'm okay with that. This is a nice coin, but doesn't rank quite as highly in the censi for its variety, and doesn't have color or eye appeal quite as nice as mine. Failing that, I may have settled for trying to get a nice MS65BN N-4, but I would have been reluctant to spend as much as it would have taken for a coin not all that much nicer than what I was upgrading.

So here it is, what may be the finest 1834 N-2. According to my taste and the catalog grades of M&G, it's the better of the two coins in the sale tied as CC#1 in the Noyes census. The CC#1 Bland census specimen was not in the sale, so there might be one finer one out there. Nevertheless, this one is "nice", my understated term for a superior coin. Certainly it isn't perfect, but its flaws are trivial and I have no complaints. Have a look...