How Would You Grade This 1796 Draped Bust Cent ?

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I can see it (maybe) going VG-08.
And I don't think the punch marks will push it to a DETAILS coin.

S-112

Vg details. dinging it for one of cleaned, corroded or the couple of small dents.

8 net 5 if I'm EAC grading it.

nice coin. id be thrilled to own it. its significantly nicer than my S-112, which is probably the ugliest coin I own.

VG8 details (damaged)

VG-8. Don't know if it would get a Details grade, the TPG's seem to be more forgiving on 18th century coins.

Thanks all for your comments.

This coin was originally part of the Rasmussen Collection sold by Heritage in January 2005.

This is how the Heritage cataloguer described this coin:

"1796 1C Draped Bust, Reverse of 1794 Fine Details NCS. VG8 EAC. S-112, Die State IV, Low R.5. This is a late die state with a central bulge obliterating nearly all of ONE CENT and the inner leaves of the wreath. Although a few dents and scrapes are noted, this is a pleasing example. The surfaces have intermingled dark brown and lighter tan color. The corrosion described by NCS is very slight, and is primarily limited to very light surface granularity on each side."

Although far from problem-free (NCS Fine details), the coin actually shows surprisingly well in-hand, and I agree with the description that the reverse corrosion is indeed light.

In my opinion, an EAC grade of VG8 (as assigned by Heritage), or thereabouts is justified.

This is an advanced die state (IV) which accounts for the central weakness of the reverse.

westcoin - thanks for reminding me I need to get in touch with Mark.

The lecture will be at the EAC convention in Portland, OR. the convention is the 22-25th of june. its free to attend. I think we will be giving the talk on the first day in the morning. we havent set a time. its about 2 hours long. its great fun. we look at a lot of coins and talk about them as a group. last year in st. louis I had 18 sign up. the room eneded up as standing room only with more than 30 attendees.

its possible I'm net-ing this coin too hard. I hit it pretty hard for the color and surfaces. those are hard to grade from photos. I'm also not the end all be all for grading. I have my opinions and I'm confident in what I think but that doesn't make my thoughts more vaild than any other educated opinion. grading is an art. its hard to be wrong at art.

Eduardo, you may be correct, I'm not 100% sure who was the cataloger for EAC coinage at Heritage back then possibly Mark, I know he was cataloging by June of 2005 at Heritage (Rasmussen sale was January of 2005). I was thinking of the Mervis sale in my head, I have the Rasmussen catalog but not at hand it's in my storage unit. (I have a big hole in catalogs scanned into PDFs on my computer in the early to mid 2000's). I only have so much space where I'm at now and I have way, way too many books for the space, I could likely fill 8 to 10 bookshelves with just catalogs and journals alone. If it wasn't Mark Borckardt cataloging, then it was likely Mark Van Winkle.

Mark moved out east to be closer to his grandchildren and kids, while he still works at Heritage, I don't get to see him now days, when I pop over for an auction lot viewing like I used to when he lived a couple miles North of me.