US Large Cents 1793-1814

This book will have you quickly and efficiently attributing 1793-1814 (Early Date) large cents in no time.  This guide contains large, full-color obverse and reverse images for all 295 Sheldon varieties plus 52 additional "NC" (so-called non-collectible) die marriages.  The sole purpose of this guide is to assist persons of every level of expertise, from beginner to expert, in quickly and easily identifying the Sheldon variety of Early Date Large Cents.  Although the guide isn't directed specifically toward beginners, it is written in plain English and in a manner that is straight forward and intuitive.  Current census data, pricing information, and other information can easily be elsewhere and is not included in this book.

Attributing large cents may seem like a complicated business, but it doesn't have to be.  At first, it may seem overwhelming, but you will find that as you become a more advanced variety attributer, you will come to rely more and more on direct visual obervation, rather than text descriptions.  You will begin to recognize die marriages the same way that you recognize a person's face.  Hence, this guide's focus on providing a complete set of oversized, full color images for each variety.

For example, the first things (key points) that you should look at when looking every large cent are the position of LIBERTY above the head, the date spacing and position, and the leaf positions on the reverse. You will then follow up by verifying that every other feature of the coin is in the correct position, shape, size, etc. Check all of your dentil alignments (that's a big one) relative to your letters and numbers in the date. Gather a mental picture. If you find yourself stumped, go through all of the die marriages looking for a reason that the coin in your hand cannot be that variety (ruling out, narrowing the list down). Are you following me? It won't be long before you begin to recognize varieties like you recognize someone's face. These "routine" observations need not be described in detail for each die marriage. In this guide, you will find that most descriptions will focus on unique or unusual features of a given die variety which could be overlooked during your "routine" mental picturing of the coin.

Please note that within this book, you will find coins pictured in which the obverse and reverse do not look like the same coin. This is simply because a better photo was available from a different die marriage that shares the same obverse or reverse die, and the pictures were put together as a "Frankenstein" coin. This will be especially helpful on the rare varieties, of which typically only very poor quality photos have been available in the past.

At the front of the book before the year-by-year variety attribution pages are pages that illustrate the major varieties as well as "Crack Finders" for select years where die cracks play a key role in attributing varieties.  If you can detect a die crack on any from a year with a Crack Finder, you should be able to find it on the Crack Finder and use that for attribution.