1801 S-218 Draped Bust Large Cent W/ 3 Errors Reverse

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here is a coin I picked up recently that I'm quite pleased to own. its almost worn slick, its barely identifiable and I paid too much for it. couldn't be happier.

1801 S-218 R-5+ 3 errors reverse.

this variety is really tough. it shares a reverse die with S-219, the more common 3 errors reverse coin and an obverse die with the oppressively rare S-217. any coin with either die usually gets scrutinized. because of that this one is pretty tough to cherry pick. it has had a fairly stable population unlike some of the other high rarity varieties that keep getting discovered.

here is a decent looking S-218. its called the three errors reverse because there are 3 engraving errors made on this die. 1st the U in United was punched upside down before being corrected so it now has the appearance of two Is. 2nd one of the stems is missing from the wreath. 3rd the fraction is 1/000 instead of the correct 1/100.

here is S-219. note the difference in the position of liberty on the obverse. if you see an 1801 with liberty all the way over to the right like the 218 you should buy it. its either 218 or 217. both are big premium coins. there are some 1797s with similar position for liberty so its not an immediate tell on a dateless coin. 219 also has a 4th error! die cracks!

here is a normal 1801.

i will probably upgrade this sometime in the future. I would like for liberty to be a bit clearer on my example of this variety. if I get a nice 217 I may not care. we will see. almost up to 230 varieties.

Fascinating post @carr. You've got an amazing large cent collection!

I did want to ask about something though. How sure are you of that explanation for the misshapen letter U in UNITED in the S218 and S219? I ask because to me it looks like two letter Is rather than a right side letter U over an upside down letter U. My reasoning for this is that the punch for the letter U has different width serifs, with the one on the left being appreciably bigger than the one on the right. In that botched letter, the four serifs all look about the same size. Any thoughts on this theory?

thanks! a lot of the credit goes to my dad. he was buying cool coins while I was still a kid. I got a bunch of coins from him and we also bought a lot of coins together. this is the fruits of about 30 years of collecting large cents. dad liked to call it copper fever.

i have heard that punch called a double I punch or a U over inverted U. Breen and Noyes both call it a U over U. who am I to argue with them?

i originally thought it was a II but ive change my opinion and now I think its a u. the letter is a bit rounded in the middle on both the top and the bottom. that fits with the U theory and I cant for the life of me work out how that would happen with the I punch. it also looks a bit thinner than the I punch.

i forgot to mention that the M in aMerica is also re-punched on the 3 errors reverse, so I guess its more of a 4 or 5 error reverse depending on die state and if you want to count the crack as an error.

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Breen and Noyes both call it a U over U.

Well that settles it then! I'm not gonna bet against either of them.

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i originally thought it was a II but ive change my opinion and now I think its a u. the letter is a bit rounded in the middle on both the top and the bottom. that fits with the U theory and I cant for the life of me work out how that would happen with the I punch. it also looks a bit thinner than the I punch.

I've never looked into this, nice observation. I agree that it is a U over U. A mistake was made in the U letter positioning, so it was punched correctly the second time. That theory makes way more sense than an II punch.

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