1794 head of '93 large cent S19b PCGS F-15

rays

On eBay, at only 5X price guide ($23,000).

With rare error doubling as well.

crypto79

Those don't trade often enough for the PCGS guide to be accurate. While I am sure his price on Ebay is a little high, I bet he is just broadcasting via Ebay to the EAC community that he has it and to contact him to discuss terms if interested.

g048406

Apparently the seller thinks PCGS under graded his coin. If the coin were a PCGS XF-40, than the price would be correct. Unfortunately, for the seller, he did not get the grade he hoped for. Coin is probably worth about $15K.

BillJones

The only attraction this coin has for me, given the high price, is that it is a sample of Joseph Wright's die work. Through some research I learned that the obverse of this Light Horse Harry Lee mint medal was struck from the original Joseph Wright die. Both dies broke while he was making them, the reverse worse than the obverse. Obtaining an impresson from the Joseph Wright reverse Henry Lee die is almost impossible. This covers the Joseph Wright "die sample" for me.

BTW this medal is about rare as a 1794, Head of '03 cent, but it's a lot cheaper.

cardinal

Denis Loring calls Joseph Wright's "Head of '93" cents the "aristocrats of the many 1794 varieties." The design features Liberty's portrait elegantly sculpted in very high relief unlike any other large cents (except the Liberty Cap cents of 1793, also by Joseph Wright). The overall look of the design is distinctly different from the later Liberty Cap cents:



I had sought out a nice example for my set for a long, long time. Generally, these come in very low grade and messed up, so higher grade examples and those with minimal problems are really scarce and in high demand when they appear. I was the underbidder on the MS63 (S-18b) specimen in the sale of Walter Husak's set, and I even made a post-auction offer to the winning bidder, but to no avail.

Some time afterward, I was offered the Garrett specimen privately. That coin is the single finest known example of the S-18b variety as well as the best of all of the "Head of '93" varieties, and it comes with a very extensive provenance stretching back to the 1860's. For a long time, the coin was part of the Garrett collection, but it was NOT included in the Bowers & Ruddy Garrett sales. John Adams, who assembled the finest set of 1794 cent varieties (including the finest known Starred Reverse cent), learned about this coin, and he went directly to the Johns Hopkins University (to which all of the Garrett coins had been bequeathed) and negotiated a private purchase of this coin for his collection. The Adams Collection was later dispersed by Bowers (1982) through a very specialized fixed price listing. I happened to speak with John Adams at the 2010 ANA in Boston, and he told me that even after nearly 30 years, that was still his single favorite large cent:



Opportunities to acquire a specimen like that can be just as rare as the coin itself, and so I stepped up and made the purchase. Let's just say the price was a bit higher than the asking price for the S-19b listed on eBay.

--Cardinal
Portraits of Liberty

SeattleSlammer

cardinal, very cool, thanks for the education!

rays

The PCGS price guide for F-15 at $4500 is low. I would be very happy to buy one at that price.
I don't know about $23K, though.

MikeInFL

That is a curious color for a PCGS slabbed circulated copper, but perhaps it's just the photo.

Regardless, it sure looks to me to be a silent net grade -- that's a lot of meat for a F-15, IMO.

MikeInFL

p.s. Cardinal, WOW!

OchoReales

Unbelievable! THANK YOU for sharing these. WOW!

lordmarcovan

When I first saw the picture, my eye did a weird optical illusion thing with the top of the portrait and cap, and processed what I was seeing as an incuse rather than a raised image.

So my thought for about a half-second was, "No wonder it's at 5X priceguide- it's a freakin' brockage!"

keyman64

I really like threads where Bill and Cardinal chime in with a lot of knowledge. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy these boards so much!

rays

<< <i> it sure looks to me to be a silent net grade -- that's a lot of meat for a F-15, IMO. >>



Especially for a 1794 head of '93. All of these that I can recall seeing were relatively shallow strikes. Perhaps there are some surface issues that netted it to a 15.

jmski52

bumpety-bump for the copper lovers.......wonderful eye candy!

cardinal

Thanks for the kind remarks!!

This thread got me thinking about how infrequently these are available, especially in higher problem-free grades, so I checked out Al Boka's website, which details the provenances of all of the various known 1794 liberty cap cents. Here are the XF40 and better specimens (by EAC grading) of the Head of '93 cents, and their last appearance at public auction:

Sheldon 17:
Clapp specimen - now impounded in the ANS
Loring specimen - December 1987

Sheldon 18a:
Clapp specimen - now impounded in the ANS

Sheldon 18b:
Garrett specimen (the piece in my photo above) - last auctioned April 1904
Cleneay specimen - now impounded in the ANS
Holmes specimen - September 2009
Whitman specimen - October 1951
Husak specimen - February 2008
Brand specimen - March 1988
Gilbert specimen - November 1973
Mint specimen - impounded in the Smithsonian
Young specimen - July 1945
Zabriskie specimen - August 2001
Brown specimen - September 1986

Sheldon 19a:
No XF or better specimens known

Sheldon 19b:
Masters specimen - February 1985
French specimen - April 1972
Clapp specimen - now impounded in the ANS

Sheldon 20b:
Clapp specimen - now impounded in the ANS


That's a total of 18 specimens known at XF40 and better, with 6 locked up in museums. Other than the specimens in the Dan Holmes collection and the Walter Husak collection, none of these have been to auction during the last 10 years. Obviously, there have been private trades of these over the years, but those prices rarely get disclosed publicly. Sure makes it difficult for price guides to know what to report!

Edited to include the Clapp specimen of the Sheldon 20b (now in the ANS)

joecopper

I do not see this coin anywhere near F15

rays

<< <i>I do not see this coin anywhere near F15 >>


Higher or lower, in your estimation?

cardinal

I found the eBay specimen in the Noyes photo database. It is listed as his photo #34287.

Bill Noyes is known as a brutal grader for early copper, and he generally grades everything several grades lower than anyone else, including the grading services and even other EAC-style graders. Noyes lists the coin as having "average" surfaces -- not "plus" or "minus" -- and he considers the coin to have F15 details, with a net grade of VG10. (If he felt the surfaces are "average" for the grade, why the lower "net" grade? )

In this case, PCGS rendered a rather similar assessment. It still seems really "meaty" to me for a grade below VF.

rays

<< <i>I found the eBay specimen in the Noyes photo database. It is listed as his photo #34287.

Bill Noyes is known as a brutal grader for early copper, and he generally grades everything several grades lower than anyone else, including the grading services and even other EAC-style graders. Noyes lists the coin as having "average" surfaces -- not "plus" or "minus" -- and he considers the coin to have F15 details, with a net grade of VG10. (If he felt the surfaces are "average" for the grade, why the lower "net" grade? )

In this case, PCGS rendered a rather similar assessment. It still seems really "meaty" to me for a grade below VF. >>



It's curious that Bill graded it 15/10 while the eBay listing states CVM graded it 30/20. That's a big discrepancy, I would think.

notwilight

I'm sure you realize that the seller is far from a newbie and has handled a lot of expensive copper including some of the recent prominent provenance coins from sets auctioned off. I don't think he graded the coin, I don't think he thinks it is undergraded. I think he realized how infrequently any Head of 93 coin shows up, especially in a holder with a grade. --Jerry

joecopper

rays - I see it as 15+ net 10 (multiple edge dings, what appears as light corrosion on back, and a few circ marks). I generally grade a little higher than Noyes and perhaps the color is really good but the pics are not the best in my opinion. I could see some EAC at maybe 20 net 12. I certainly would be apprehensive about paying even 12 money when it came time to sell. I certainly do not understand 30/20.

rays

<< <i>I'm sure you realize that the seller is far from a newbie and has handled a lot of expensive copper including some of the recent prominent provenance coins from sets auctioned off. I don't think he graded the coin, I don't think he thinks it is undergraded. I think he realized how infrequently any Head of 93 coin shows up, especially in a holder with a grade. --Jerry >>



These are scarce, PCGS has slabbed 37 total examples, including 4 fines, of the 1794 head of '93 type (by point of reference, 99 examples of the 1793 liberty caps have been certified by PCGS in all grades). Heritage has auctioned 5 PCGS and 5 NGC (no problem) slabbed examples in all grades since they started keeping archives in 1993.