Most Expensive Canadian Large Cent Variety Ever Sold

Pac, relative to the Titanic, I think it depends on where you bought in. I see a correction down the road, but if you cost basis is low, then you should be okay.

One of the most important things in variety work, particularly with the large cents, is to remove dirt and grime so everything is clearly visible. I can't resist telling the story of how the designation for the DP #1 (and #2) came about. This story has been told before, but some of you here haven't heard it. The early Charlton catalogs listed four varieties of the 1859 cent that effectively came down to this: the Narrow 9, the Narrow 9 over 8, the Wide 9 (i.e., non-overdate) and the Wide 9 over 8. The problem was that (in my view) two of them were mis-attributions. The first was the Narrow 9 over 8. Through various means I became certain that this variety was simply one of the repunched 9s and could not be an overdate. By the way, the narrow 9 over 8 did not originate with Jim Charlton; he was just passing the designation along. Anyway, that's how a repunched N9 first got into a standard catalog. The second mis-attribution was the non-overdate Wide 9. My research at the time had turned up 11 overdate dies, but I was never able to find a Wide 9 that didn't show at least some remnant of the 8 below. Based on my knowledge of the British overdates produced in the same period by The Royal Mint, I strongly suspected (and still believe today) that for the Canadian overdate the Wide 9 punch was made specifically for the purpose of overdating. So, I approached Jim with my findings and told him about my work with varieties in the other Victorian denominations, as well as other monarchs. I asked him if he'd be interested in my help in producing his next standard catalog. He politely declined. Shortly after that, one of his auctions contained one of the 1859 non-overdate Wide 9 cents. Of course I bought it. The next thing I did was take it up to Jim and have him watch while I took it out of the holder, remove the dirt around the 9 and reveal the 8 that I knew had to be there. Yes, it was a cheeky thing to do, but I was young!

Shortly after the plain Wide 9 affair, Whitman approached me to write (along with the late Bob Willey) a new Canadian catalog for them, to be called Coins of Canada. At that time (1971) I was reluctant to include any repunched narrow 9s (knowing that there were a number of different dies involved). However, the Narrow 9 over 8 had become well-established in the market and really couldn't be ignored. There was also the problem that a more common repunched N9 variety was often traded as the Narrow 9 over 8. So, I decided to list them both: the old N9 over 8 as the RP N9 #1 and the other one as the RP N9 #2. And the rest is history. And part of this story is all over the mis-attribution of dirty coins!

Yes, and as far as I'm concerned there are several nicer looking RP 9s. I think the #2 is the most attractive of them all. Personally, it makes no difference to me whether the 9 is doubled or tripled; they're all just repunchings. Conceptually the most interesting are the 9 over inverted 9s (though they're not exactly bold).

JHax , you might find it interesting that RC (Willey) still had lots of notes and paperwork relating to your work together and lots of notes on 1859 cents as well. I handled the Willey estate (coins and tokens ). After Bob's death a family member trashed most of Bobs notes and papers and some of his books. Surely a loss to the study of what we discuss here. His library was about 90 per cent saved thank goodness.
I was very fortunate to have had Bob around my coin store for the years he was retired here in Victoria. I certainly learned a lot from him. Amongst his holdings was well over 150 1859 Large cents and a couple of hundred unattributed bouquet sous. There are many here whom today would drool going through that little hoard.
Another interesting little tid bit regarding 1859 cents. Recently I was on a UK buying trip. Normally you can find lots of mid grade 1859 Large cents in the UK at the coin fairs and shops. This trip I got only ONE to add to my burgeoning hoard. Seems to be a lot of closet 1859 ers around all of a sudden . Surely this cannot have anything to do with your and Bosox fine works on Large Cents? HMMMMMMMMMMM.

JHax a lot of those hits are from me! I am getting more interested in the 1859 cents and when I have the time I take a few out of my box and see what I have. On the 9 over inverted 9 varieties, do both have a somewhat lower position nine as compared to the five in the date?