1826/25 Large Cent On Ebay

If it has a "Clear 6/5" there's a problem because the 1826/5 doesn't have a "clear 6/5" even in high grade. The coin appears to be a N-1. The overdate is N-8

For books it depends on whether you want to work on early, middle, or late dates. And whether you want to just collect by date or get into the varieties.

Well since you would like to start with the late dates the book you would want for the varieties would be "The Die Varieties of United States Large Cents 1840-1857" by J are Grellman. The nice thing about the late dates is there are no rare dates and the coins are readily available in nice condition. (The 1857 is scarce but readily available and not expensive. On the other hand there are die varieties that are very rare and expensive.) A date set of the Petite and Braided hair cents of 1840 to 1857 can be assemble in XF at a price that most collectors can afford. (Of course if the number of people that decide they want a set increases significantly so will the prices because while there are lot of nice pieces around, there are not a LOT of pieces around.)