1804 HALF CENT - WHAT VARIETY?

[dleonard-3]

Can you copper nuts give me some info on this coin? I'm sorry about the photo quality, these are all I have.

[Gunny]

I am not an expert, but I did just get my Cohen book, "Little Sisters". There are 13 varieties for this date listed and it is just too hard to tell from your pictures. If I had to make a guess, I'd say it was a C-10.

[Coindude]

Looks like a crosslet 4, other that, I'm not an early copper guy.

[BillJones]

It appears to be Cohen variety 1804 C-5. The early die state of this, without the spiked chin, is rare, but I never was a die state collector. If it is the early die state without the spiked chin, it is rare and might might be a strong price despite the condition. Overall this is an R-4 (76 to 200 estimated population.

 

Here a picture of an left over piece from my days as a half cent die variety collector of this variety. My piece has the spiked chin.

 

[x2rider]

Nice Bill . I haven't seen any with a crack reverse before (thumbs u

[Conder101]

This is a coin that needs to be seen in hand. Bill is right that these are the obv and rev dies for C-5. In the early state before the die was damaged to create the spiked chin these were originally cataloged as C-3 before they were identified as being the same dies. At the time only 2 C-3's were known and it was delisted. Since then more have been found and it has kinda been relisted. But when I say that more have been found, we are talking maybe as many as 15. The C-3 is a low R-7 or high R-6. Even in this condition it could be a four figure coin. It needs to be seen in hand though to make sure the spiked chin has not been tooled away and the field smoothed to hide the thread marks.

 

So you either have a tooled C-5 not worth much, or a C-3 worth possibly four figures.

[dleonard-3]

You guys nailed it. I found this one at a coin show in Las Vegas quite a few years ago. The dealer had a HUGE stack of lower (collector) grade half cents, and I went through all of them. He was asking $60 for this one, but I talked him down to $50 pretty easy. I wish I could remember who the dealer was because he was great. I love dealers that have a ton of material, but it's not attributed.

 

Anyway, later that same year I went to the EAC convention that happened to be in Las Vegas. I showed this to Lanny Reinhart & Leonard Wingo, and Leonard showed some interest. They both checked it out thoroughly under a microscope and determined it is legitimate. I ended up selling/trading it to Leonard for the Eliasburg 1804 C8 spiked chin & some cash. So I had the privilige of owning two famous/important half cents - for a short time anyway. I'm not sure where either of those coins are now, but I sure do miss them.

[johnny9434]

all the fun of getting the varieties you never know