Accessorizing with 1837

I really love my NGC MS65BN 1837 N-9 cent. I paid a lot for it at the time (four years ago), and I'm still glad I did. Within my collection, only my 1820 N-13 competes with its beauty. But I upgraded the date to an MS66RB in the Naftzger sale anyway.

In my auction planning, I had three 1837 cents in mind out of 43 available for the date. The first of the four was a really nice N-7/8 in MS67BN. Of course, it sold for more than my preset max, and more than I had left to spend. (I had already gone past my max on the 1833, and would again a few lots from here, but there is a hard limit...)

The sale included eleven examples of the N-9 die variety, with good reason. During the service of the die pair, several cracks appear and grow at different times. Ted Naftzger assembled a nice sequence of die states. Ten of them are in high MS grades. The first is an AU example of the scarce earliest state. My example is of a fairly late state, and is a couple tiny ticks on the jaw away from brown perfection. My lot viewing notes indicate over and over that, to my tastes, my coin is better than the Naftzger examples of the variety. So I didn't pursue another N-9, even though five of them had higher slab grades than mine.

I passed over a nice N-10 in a MS66RB slab because I didn't think it deserved the RB designation. As it turned out, it would have been relatively cheap registry points, but something inside me said not to get it. The next lot was target #2, another N-10, this one in an MS66BN holder. It sold for 50% over my maximum.

Two lots later was target #3, the fourth and final N-10 available. It's graded MS66RB by PCGS, and MS65 by the EAC-style standards of the catalogers. It is tied for CC#1 in the Bland census, and tied for CC#2 in the Noyes census. It became mine for a couple bid increments over my max, and tied the 1833 as most expensive coin in my collection. I don't really remember anything about the actual bidding.

The N-10 is known as the "Accessory N" variety because traces of a stray N appear punched in the leaves below the N in UNITED. My example is a late/terminal die state with a series of cud breaks from star 13 clockwise to star 1. The accessory N is not as clear as in earlier die states. About two thirds of the original color remains on both sides, which are significantly flowlined. The luster is great, and there are only a few trivial marks and spots.