1817 Large Cent. Known Error?

a very cool variety with a lot of die errosion showing off on this one! I like it.

really cool that they often used these dies till they got really bad

Super pick-up, congrats!

The different die marriages of the middle (1816 -1839) and late dates (1940 - 1857) were originally cataloged by Andrews in 1882 and he used A numbers. In the late 30s' early 40's Howard R Newcomb re-cataloged them and just before his death in 1944 his book cataloging them was published he used N numbers (But for the most part the A and N numbers are the same) Ever since then the varieties for the middle and late date cents have been collected by "Newcomb" or N numbers. 1817 N-12 is the twelfth of the seventeen known die marriages for that year. The 15 star variety that Exoguy mentioned is N-16.

Here is the Newman Numismatic Portal's online page for Howard Newcomb's book. It is available for download in a PDF format if you so choose.

John Wright's book "The Cent" is an even better and newer book with photographs rather than line drawings but Howard was the original, John just took off with an updated newer book.

Howard Newcomb's Book:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/564828

John Wright's Book
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/530759

What about early cents (< 1815) with circular die cracks or small cents? Do these exist?

Die cracks tend to run from point to point through areas of stress in the dies. The stars and their point tend to create these stress areas. The pre 1808 cents didn't have stars so they don't have circular die cracks on the obv, but do often have cracks through LIBERTY of the date as those are the stress areas on those dies. The reverse will often have cracks through the tops of the letters as well. Some time these will go most of the way around the coin but they usually aren't as visually impressive.

On the classic head cents 1808 - 1814, these do have stars but only two varieties seem to suffer from circular obv die breacks, 1810 S-285 (Late die stage) with the crack through the date and all the stars on the right hand side, and 1812 S-291 (Mid die stage and later) which actually does have pretty much a circular crack.

I haven't located a good image of a late stage of S-285 (there is a good one in Breens large cent book) but I have found one of 1812 S-291. The right hand crack runs through the bottom of the date up through all the stars ending just past the strat above the bust. The left hand crack starts at star 1, runs trhour all the stars, above the bust and and ends close to where the right hand crack ends.



OK this is the best I've been able to do for S-285, the crack is faint but is visible through the bottom of the date and stars 13 and 12. Then gets fainter but can then be see through the outer points of stars 8 and 7 into the field.