1859 Brass Cent?

Hi,

Yes my toughs also but I have spoken to a couple of the main dealers here in Canada wanting to buy one my self and they all said the same thing that one specific guy is there main buyer and he always offers more than any other buyer to be certain that he gets the coin. Yes he must like you have said be a rich person because buying say 30 coins at 15 000$ to 30 000$ is a lot of money. I have been on a waiting list for almost 5 years now and none have been available that I have heard of any way.

There are not thousands known to exist maybe 20 to 30 maximum or a big 40 at that. There have been 2 (one in Good and another in Good with corrosion)in the last couple years that came up for auction and the same guy bought both (I now this because my main contact was there to bid for me and he said the other guy got it and not to over bid because he will just continue on bidding till he wins anyway).

According to Charlton's:

"A very rare variety of the plain, narrow 9 exists in brass, which can be identified by its distinctive yellow colour."

Values:

G-4 $5,000 to VF-20 $15,000

I answered this in the variety section. It's not brass ... take the car back that you just bought.

The bronze (or any alloy) is rolled out into thin sheets/strips by massive, weighted rollers and the planchets (blanks) are/were essentially punched/cut out of the sheets or strips. The cutting/punching dies are all exactly the same diameter (25.4 mm). So any planchet made from there will be exactly the same diameter, whether it was copper, brass, steel, plastic, leather or whatever material was/may be being used. The planchets were each to weigh 4.54g with variations allowed for a small tolerance. This was 1859 and the rolled sheets that the planchets were struck from varied a little in thickness from strip to strip, so the weight of each planchet may have started out not all exactly the same. If a newly struck coin was supposed to weigh 4.54g in uncirculated condition, then an AU may have weighed 4.50, and XF 4.45, a VF 4.35 and so on because the metal was being worn away. I would imagine that there are some coins down by the 4.0g weight and still readable. Not every coin started at 4.54 .. many were lighter. The variation in weight between a brass coin to a bronze one is extremely small, based only on alloy composition .. the densities are not all that different in the alloy mixtures that are possible. Any amount of wear in the coin eliminates any alloy weight difference found.

I'm not trying to be harsh, just trying to keep my reality hat on. What you were saying is the same as thinking that you can tell a person's hair color over the phone by only knowing his weight and shoe size. There is a small group of us working on the 1859 brass cent project, with the first part of the project published in the March 2012 Canadian Numismatic Journal. Try to get a copy. There are 2 more phases to go with it and I think that, in something upcoming, we need to amplify the identification problem that people seem to be having. You can't go by size and weight or even color, since I've seen scores of 1859's that look really yellow in color, but any number of chemicals, natural or man-made will turn bronze yellow, including lime/lemon juice, CRC, vinegar, and any number of household cleaners. Just be happy that you have a 150+ year old coin for your collection .. 1859's are neat, but yours isn't brass unless you send it somewhere to have it tested. You can't pick up a coin with a mintage of 9 million and say that it's brass (a handful known) based upon a phone call or one sentence from a website that gives diameter and weight.