1859 Brass And 1859 W9/8 Coinage - Varieties Or Not?

I would get rid of them. I don't have strong feelings about them, but I think they should be excluded. I know I don't consider them as varieties and I don't seek them actively.

How about adding a chapter at the end of the book for interesting oddities which are not by definition varieties? That should satisfy just about everyone.

I appreciate the opinions.

I think they probably have to be included, because ICCS, Trends and Charlton guide are all treating them as varieties.

It really is a struggle to decide what should be included in a Variety book and what shouldn't.

I've settled on 150 one cent varieties. Lots of 1859s, and three 1896 far 6s for example :).

I don't think that the "far 6" for 1896 should be listed at all and it was a mistake to even list it in the first place. Since the 6 was handpunched into each working die, the last 6 can be all over the place. It can be up down, near, far, and canted(rotated) right or left. The very first one that was certified 10-12 years ago was actually a "far, far, very high canted left" coin. I probably have 15-20 different placements of the six. If you are writing a variety book, then it should be explained that none of these placements are any scarcer than any other and that they are all over the map. At about 60,000 coins average per working die, there should be about 35 different placements of the 6 because they were all manually punched in. It's the same with the "low 9" for 1859 ... another coin that should never have been recognized because it is REALLY nothing special.

When friends and I wrote the variety section for the 2011, 65th edition of Charlton, we had over 80 that we thought should be included at first blush, cut it to about 60 and then Charlton wanted it cut to 40 because of space so we pared some more. But our parameters were set to show the variety "possibilities" for each year/Obverse type and listed specific coin varieties to show what was possible. It certainly was never intended to be all-inclusive.

The market has embraced some varieties/errors and completely rejected others...

I see the 1896 Far 6 as a variety that was embraced by the market. But I totally agree that some structure is needed.
For example, I started collecting only Far 6s that had a huge die crack down the centre of the reverse (only recently I realized this is 2011 Charlton p.340 at an earlier state...that 6 o'clock die crack eventually extends to the date).

Then I realized that I had a bunch of Far 6s with die crack in V Victoria and C in Canada..turns out that was p.341, although these die markers were not pointed out.
ICCS of course labeled everything "Far 6", which, going by my ICCS purchases over past 5 years, now includes at least 4 die pairs.

Each variety must be a single die pair with a catalog number, that's the only way to introduce a structure into "popular" variety collecting.

The 1859 Low 9 was rejected by the market, IMO. I know that ICCS tried it for a while but it was a disaster.

Same with the "repunched 85" or "repunched 5" nonsense, both of which ICCS and CCCS are guilty of. These "varieties" represented many different die pairs and the market has completely rejected this as a result. All one needs to look at is the number of these coins priced at $500+ on ebay that sit unsold.

Although not a die study or die catalog at all, my goal, nevertheless is to introduce structure into "popular" variety collecting.

And once a proper structure is introduced, things like 1859 "repunched 85", "repunched 5", "9/9 variation", or even 1896 "Far 6" will completely disappear from the market.

I have no other date spacings for large cents.

I will however, have some for silver. Specifically 5c 1893 wide date, 25c 1900 narrow/wide date and maybe a few more.