PCGS - Early American large cents are one of the most popular and yet most challenging areas of numismatics. These hulking copper "pennies," struck for commerce at a time when the United States was in its infancy, are well regarded by collectors and have been studied throughout the ages. They are found in the richest United States type collections and, offering a vast number of varieties, can keep collectors searching for many years to find even just one suitable example for their cabinets. Among these intrepid collectors is Walter J. Husak, a high-flying philanthropist and aerospace industrialist whose top-flight collection of large cents is among the finest and most complete of any ever assembled.
This 1794 Liberty Cap S-57 Head of 1794 Large Cent once belonged in the Lord St. Oswald and D. Brent Pogue Collections and was repurchased by Walter Husak in 2017. It sold for $164,500.He began his numismatic journey in 1955 collecting a variety of coins that he encountered in circulation as a young collector. In June 1980, he bought his first large cent, a rare 1804 Draped Bust, for $600 - a fateful purchase that eventually led to a multi-decade journey building one of the finest large cent collections of all time.
Over the course of the next quarter century, Husak built a virtually complete collection of large cents from 1793 through 1814 incorporating 301 different varieties catalogued by large cent expert Dr. William Herbert Sheldon. Many of these Sheldon varieties offer just one or two known specimens, yet Husak painstakingly acquired all but three of the most esoteric pieces. When he sold this collection in 2008, it realized some $10.7 million, with two of his rare cents fetching $632,500 apiece.
More than a decade later, Husak is rebuilding his famous collection. What drives him to pursue such a feat? "The thrill of the chase," he remarks. Many of the specimens he owns were at one time or another essentially "non-collectible" because they were the best-known examples of varieties that in some cases may yield just one known example and were long held in multigenerational private collections.
"The varieties of these coins - the Sheldons - they are nothing but the best. I want to collect them all, and I hope this display inspires other collectors to go out and pursue what the coins they want, whether they be Large Cents,
Standing Liberty quarters,
Morgan dollars, or something else." His Liberty Cap Foundation (libertycapfoundation.org) serves as a stunning museum of early American coins.
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Posted 10/22/2021 2:43 pm
