1798 Draped Bust Cent. S-148. Rarity-2. Style I Hair. MS-63+ BN (PCGS). CAC.<strong>Type:</strong> Draped Bust.<p><strong>Design:</strong> Obv: A draped bust of Liberty faces right with the word LIBERTY above and the date 1798 below. Libertys hair is tied with a ribbon, the ends of which are plainly evident at the back of the head. Rev: A wreath surrounds the denomination ONE CENT, the base of the wreath bound by a ribbon tied into a bow. The legend UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is around the border and another expression of the denomination 1/100 is below.<p><strong>Weight Standard:</strong> 10.89 grams.<p><strong>Diameter:</strong> 29 mm.<p><strong>Die Variety:</strong> Sheldon-148, Breen-11. Obv: Style I Hair (a.k.a. Head of 1797) without an extra curl in Libertys hair at the shoulder. Style I Letters, the tail of the R in LIBERTY is straight. Horned 9 variety with a short, sharp spur pointing up from the back of the digit 9 in the date. S-148 represents the only use of this obverse die. Rev: Wide fraction with considerable space between the digits in the denominator. There are two spurs within the top of the letter O in OF. This reverse also appears in the S-153 and S-168 pairings.<p>S-148 is one of numerous die marriages that correspond to the Style I Hair <em>Guide Book</em> variety of the 1798 Draped Bust cent.<p><strong>Die State:</strong> Noyes B/B-C, Breen II. Obv: Lightly cracked through the base of the digits 179 in the date into the field below the lowest curl, from the lowest curl into the lower left field, and from the end of Libertys bust to the border. Rev: Lightly cracked through the top of the letters in the words UNITED and STATES.<p><strong>Edge:</strong> Plain.<p><strong>Mintage:</strong> Federal records provide a mintage of 979,700 cents during calendar year 1798. Popular numismatic references such as the <em>Guide Book</em>, however, list a mintage of 1,841,745 coins for the 1798-dated Draped Bust cent issue. The exact number of coins struck from 1798-dated dies is unknown, although it certainly includes most of the 979,700 cents delivered during calendar year 1798, most of the 904,585 cents delivered during calendar year 1799, and perhaps also some coins struck in 1800.<p><strong>Estimated Surviving Population for the Die Variety:</strong> Rarity-2: 751 to 1,000 coins in all grades.<p><strong>Strike:</strong> This expertly produced example offers good centering, uniform denticulation around both sides, and sharp to full detail to virtually all design elements. A shallow low spot to the right of the denomination ONE CENT explains the softness at the inner leaves in that area, the result of foreign matter adhering to the die.<p><strong>Surfaces:</strong> A beautiful coin, the surfaces are frosty in texture and originally toned in a blend of olive and steely-brown patina. Faint remnants of faded mint color are evident here and there within the wreath, as well as at the denticles outside the letters ME in AMERICA. Tiny, faint carbon spots are easily overlooked. The surfaces are overall smooth with only a few wispy handling marks discernible under close scrutiny with a loupe. Light marks in the field before Libertys neck and a tiny X-shaped abrasion on the chin are mentioned solely for provenance purposes.<p><strong>Commentary:</strong> Eighteen of the obverse dies used to strike 1798-dated cents were produced using the head punch of 1797, which the <em>Guide Book</em> describes as the Style I Hair variety. Breen asserts that these dies were initially prepared in 1796 or 1797, but not dated until required for coinage in 1798. Sheldon-148, offered here, features one of these obverse dies. This is the popular Horned 9 variety of the date, available by early large cent standards, although high grade survivors are elusive with the census quickly dropping down to the EAC VF-30 level. Only three Mint State examples are known. The ESM specimen ranked CC#2 in the 2015 Noyes census after the ANS coin, ex Elmer S. Sears. Bland ranks this coin CC#3 after the aforementioned ANS coin and a former ANS coin, later ex Dr. William H. Sheldon. Noyes grade for the ESM specimen is MS62(MS60) Choice, while Bland describes it as MS-60. As one of the finest S-148 cents available for private ownership, this will be a significant offering for advanced variety specialists and those collecting by <em>Guide Book</em> varieties.PCGS# 36023. NGC ID: 2244.PCGS Population (all die marriages of the Style I Hair variety): 1; 6 finer in this category (MS-65 BN finest). There is also an MS-65 RB certified at PCGS.<p>CAC Population: 2; 0.From the ESM Collection. Earlier ex Henry C. Hines; Lillian Scheer (Hines housekeeper); Homer K. Downing, 1950; Dr. William H. Sheldon, 1958; C. Douglas Smith; Dr. Robert A. Schuman; McCawley-Grellman and Superiors sale of September 2004, lot 331; Walter Husak; Heritages sale of the Walter Husak Collection, February 2008, lot 2151; Tom Reynolds; Ira & Larry Goldbergs sale of the Tom Reynolds Collection of Large Cents, Part I, January 2016, lot 130.
