1804 stemless crosslet 4 Half Cent opinions, please.

[jesbroken]

I would appreciate your opinions as to grade and attractiveness of this half cent. These are the sellers pics(not great) as coin has not arrived yet. I graded it VF20, but then its mine.

Thank you for your time.

Jim

 

[WoodenJefferson]

Well, the image is rather on the dark side, but I can see most of the detail intact and it looks like it has full rims on both sides, so its far from a “smoothie” I just wish I could see more of the hair and ribbon features on Miss Liberty. Could be your estimate of VF-20 might be close, just too hard to give an accurate assessment, but I think you’ll be happy with it, especially if you paid Fine money for it.

 

[RI AL]

I'd go F-15. I'd like to try to figure out the variety but will have to wait until later. Any chance of a sharper picture when the coin arrives??

 

RI AL

[RI AL]

jesbroken

 

I'm not quite sure from the pictures, but I BELIEVE you have variety 12, crosslet 4, stemless wreath. It is a Rarity 2 or , "not so common".

 

What I can't quite tell is if it really is a crosslet 4 as the photo doesn't clearly show the crosslet. This typed number "4" has no crosslet but notice that the horizontal line extends past the vertical. The crosslet type 4 has a short, clear vertical line at the end of the horozontal. Awwww heck...I can't explain it really well but take a look at this e-Bay item and you will see the crosslet to the right of the vertical leg of the 4.

Item number: 260157000587

 

If your coin does not have the crosslet, it is a variety 13 with a rarity of 1, "common".

 

My reference, "American Half Cents, the Little Half Sisters", second edition. by Roger S. Cohen, Jr.. page 54

 

RI AL

[Coindude]

Looks like it might have ED.... environmental damage that is. A decent coin and I would accept it into my collection.

[ant]

hope you dont mind. i tried blowing up and brightening a bit.

 

 

[RI AL]

I'm inclined to go along with the Environmental Damage assessment. Hard to tell, but it looks a bit corroded...more so on the reverse.

[BillJones]

This coin is Fine-12 by sharpness, but the surfaces are rough and gray. As such it net grades to Good-6. The slab companies would Body Bag it for "environmental damage" and this case they would be correct.

 

The die variety is Cohen 12, which is an R-2. It's a little rarer than average, but won't get any hearts a-flutter because of the grade.

 

Sorry I can't be more positive.

[RI AL]

BillJones.

 

I'm confused. Cohen 10 is not stemless in the second edition of "Little Half Sisters". Only C-12 and C-13 are stemless. What am I missing??

 

RI AL

[BillJones]

Sorry about that Al. I made a typo. The coin is a Cohen 12, and I changed my post.

 

The stemless wreath die was the most durable die in the history of half cents. It was used for the 1804 Cohen 12 and 13 varieties (Cohen 13 is the most variety in the entire half cent series) and the most common varieties for the 1805 and 1806 half cents. If all of the early U.S. mint dies had been as well made, there would have been very few die varieties for us to collect.

 

[RI AL]

BillJones.

 

Thanks for the post about the 1804 half cent correction. I figured that maybe we had different editions of the book or something. Anyway, it's good to know I wasn't too far off the mark.

 

RI AL