The only perfect specimen of this rare variety I have ever seen. - Ed. Frossard, 1883After more than 35 years, lots 91 and 92 from our Garrett Sale I are reunited at auction and again sold in consecutive lots. This cents surfaces are a deep and attractive shade of near ebony, the devices contrasting nicely in a lighter tone of steel. The surfaces reveal tight granularity under a glass. The glossy and shallow deep olive encrustation seen around the obverse devices, particularly at its base, and the hints of ruddy patina near ST of STATES, suggest gentle and benign ground exposure. One can imagine this was quite a find when unearthed before 1883, a 1799 cent that was even finer than the best piece in the Lorin G. Parmelee Collection!The surfaces are naturally glossy, even and appealing, and the devices show uncommon detail for any variety of this legendary date. A few ancient scratches, likely dating to the time of this coins discovery, are seen at the date. Some other trivial old scratches are seen in the field off Libertys chin, and circulation marks are seen at Libertys shoulder and at the tip of her bust. The reverse is exceptionally free of flaws for the grade.The die state is equivalent to Breens State III, with impressed denticles above ERICA on the reverse and several sets of clash marks. The clashing is seen on the obverse beneath Libertys chin and above her hair bow, and multiple impressions are evident on the reverse, best seen beneath A of STATES, F of OF, and at the base of the wreath.Any 1799 cent is an object of desire. Even before the large cents demise in 1857 caused a sea change among American collectors, this date had been spotlighted as a rarity. Joseph J. Mickley was first termed "the father of American numismatics" by William E. DuBois, the Philadelphia Mint employee whose curatorship of the Mint Cabinet gave him a central role among American collectors in the early 1840s and for decades thereafter. DuBois recalled Mickleys entree into the numismatic scene in the April 1871 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics: "Many years ago, when he cared no more for coins than the rest of mankind do, he heard that the cent of 1799 was very rare. That was the year he was born in. A cent of that year he must have; and he got it."Mickley died in 1878. When this coin was first sold five years later, the desirability of this date had long been one of the basic axioms of numismatics. Ed. Frossard described this piece in 1883 as "a perfect impression... the only perfect specimen of this rare variety I have ever seen." Snapped up by the Baltimore dentist-coin dealer Dr. George A. Massamore for his friend T. Harrison Garrett, it would not sell again for nearly a century.There are only a few 1799/8 cents that are not worn or damaged into near oblivion; this piece ranks high among them. It trails just two listings on the PCGS Population Report, a well-known coin certified as AU-58 and an AU-53 that has not been traced. Del Blands census lists this piece as the second finest known 1799/8 cent, while Bill Noyes ranks it third, below the coin impounded in the American Numismatic Society collection. With its choice eye appeal, strong sharpness, and unsurpassable provenance, this is one of the most desirable examples of this key date rarity extant.
