Volume XXXX Number 1 January 2006 Consecutive Issue #232 Copyright 2006 Early American Coppers, Inc. All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Editor’s Introduction Harry Salyards 3 Original Articles Bill Eckberg 5 1810 Half Cent Die States Greg A. Silvis 10 An Interview with R. “Tett” Tettenhorst Meetings and Membership Notes Randy Snider 18 Santa Clara Meeting Report Dan Holmes 18 EAC Sales Wells, Loring and Heck 18 EAC 2006 Annual Convention 20 Call for Exhibits 20 Grading and Counterfeit Detection Seminar Chris McCawley and Bob Grellman 21 Call for Consignments Dan Trollan 22 2006 Large Cent Happening Bill Eckberg 22 2006 Half Cent Happening Chuck Heck 23 EAC Dinner with David Lange Chuck Heck 23 Tours at EAC 2006 Dan Holmes 24 EAC 2008: Cal for Proposals Doug Bird and Steve Carr 24 ANA Grading & Counterfeit Detection Seminar Rod Burress 25 Candidates for Membership Miscellaneous Collector Notes James Higby 25 The Little Brown Cent Gerald Buckmaster 27 Grading Late Die States: Grounds for Handicaps Denis Loring 29 Homecoming Don Taylor 30 Experiences in a Small Colorado Coin Shop Jack Robinson 31 CQR is Moving Forward John Wright 31 Making Sense From the Internet Gene Anderson 35 Swaps and Sales 39 DIRECTORY OF OFFICERS National Officers President: Dan Holmes ([email protected]) (216) 486-4000 16900 S. Waterloo Road, Cleveland, OH 44110 Vice President: Denis Loring ([email protected]) Box 32115, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33420 Secretary: John Kraljevich ([email protected]) c/o American Numismatic Rarities, Box 1804, Wolfeboro, NH 03894 Treasurer: John D. Wright ([email protected]) 1468 Timberlane Drive, St. Joseph, MI 49085 Editor of Penny-Wise: Harry E. Salyards ([email protected]) 606 N. Minnesota Ave., Hastings, NE 68901 Membership Chairman: Rod Burress 9743 Leacrest, Cincinnati, OH 45215 Historian: Pete Smith 2424 4th St., NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418 Regional Officers Region 1: New England: Chairman: Charles Davis ([email protected]) Secretary: Howard Barron ([email protected]) Region 2: New York-New Jersey: Chairman: H. Craig Hamling ([email protected]) Secretary: Jim Neiswinter ([email protected]) Region 3: Mid-Atlantic (PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, NC) Chairman: Bill Eckberg ([email protected]) Secretary: Brett Dudek ([email protected]) Region 4: Southeast (SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, TN) Chairman: Bob Grellman ([email protected]) Secretary: Don Weathers (P.O. Box 30996, Myrtle Beach, SC 29588) Region 5: North Central (MI, OH, KY, IN, IL, WI, MN, IA, NE, SD, ND) Chairman: Terry Hess ([email protected]) Secretary: Joe Tomasko (P.O. Box 388386, Chicago, IL 60638) Region 6: South Central (KS, MO, AR, LA, TX, OK, NM, CO) Chairman: Don Valenziano ([email protected]) Secretary: Chris McCawley ([email protected]) Region 7: West (WY, MT, ID, UT, NV, AZ, CA, OR, WA, AK, HI) Chairman: Bim Gander ([email protected]) Secretary: Randy Snyder ([email protected]) Region 8: Internet Chairman: Mark Switzer ([email protected]) Webmaster: H. Craig Hamling ([email protected]) Penny-Wise has been published every two months since September 1967. Its founding editor was Warren A. Lapp (1915-1993). Harry E. Salyards has served as Editor-in-Chief since 1986. Contributing Editors: Denis W. Loring, John D. Wright. Typing Assistance by Debra Johnson. Printed by Advance Graphics and Printing, Chandler, OK. 2 INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR: 34 ONE HUNDRED-THOUSANDTHS OF ONE PERCENT Harry E. Salyards The general numismatic press continues to be awash in Big Prices paid for Trophy Coins. And active copper collectors have to wonder, looking back at Rasmussen and forward to Reiver, what it will take to fill their glaring holes with even “collector-grade” coins. In such an environment, the publicity for coins as an “investment” will inevitably increase. I’d like to propose a note – several notes, actually – of caution, as I enter my 47th year in the coin hobby. The figure quoted above is my actual, annualized return on a parcel of 32 coins, mainly but not exclusively large cents, which I had held for an average of 16.2 years, and sold in a major national auction in the Spring of 2001. Was I displeased with the result? Not really. I got my money out, as the saying goes, and that’s all I really expected – or needed. While the coins were no longer central to my collecting strategy, I wouldn’t have minded holding on to them; but they had to go, if a property purchase opportunity was to be realized. They weren’t junk, or ‘mistakes.’ (I suspect we’ve all ‘paid our tuition’ on those sorts of coins, as a late collector friend was wont to call them.) They were quality material. And I broke even. Indeed, at a major show later in 2001, a well-known national dealer asked me if those had been my cents, in that particular sale; hearing that they were, and my reason for selling, he leaned back in his chair and said, “Ah. Savings.” Think about that word: savings. Ready money, when you need it. What other hobby can offer you that? But it’s still a hobby. You may turn a monetary profit in the end, but profit isn’t the guiding principle. If it were, as soon as Coin X appreciated 100% (or some other targeted percentage, sufficient to allow both you and the repurchasing dealer to make a decent profit on the transaction), you’d sell it. But you don’t, because that would leave a hole in the collection. And the collection, at least as long as it’s actively growing, is like an organism: it takes on a life of its own, with each piece forming a part of that life. In that light, you’d no more consider selling Coin X than you would your left kidney. So you buy and hold, with an eye to saving. Sheldon’s notion of “not invest[ing] more in any luxury, such as an old penny, than you feel you can good- humoredly afford to lose” is out of date; prices are simply too high, across the board. But so is the notion of “high profits from rare coin investing,” if investing, with its implicit eye to profit, is the operative word. The legendary collections of the passing generation, on which so many tales of mind-boggling profit are based, were put together by collectors who knew their coins. They found their real profit in the intangibles: the excitement of the hunt, the thrill of the acquisition, the satisfaction of completing a series. Furthermore, those collections were built in a world of $42 double eagles, $1200 bags of mint state silver dollars, and – more to the point for copper collectors – AU 1794 cents at $50. That world isn’t coming back. Consider also the effect that changes in grading standards can have on a collector’s apparent profits. In December of 1976, I purchased a 1904-O silver dollar from a major national dealer. The coin was called “MS-65 prooflike,” and was purchased for $25. Over the next few years, I cheerfully plotted that coin’s apparent advance in price, putting some of this data in impressive graphic form. But when I decided to sell that dollar, in October of 1984, it was reckoned only 3 MS-63, and brought only $29. I haven’t done the math on that one, but I suspect that “34 one hundred-thousandths of one percent” per year isn’t far off! Or take the 1907 Arabic numerals double eagle, “MS-63,” that I bought in September of 1979 for $695, from another major national advertiser. I have a striking line graph in my old collection notes, with about a 60-degree upward slope in the alleged value of that coin, to $1200, over just the subsequent four months. And indeed, if my motive had been to turn a quick profit, I might just have been able to do so, in that crazy precious metals market of early 1980. But only because grading was also ‘loosey- goosey’ at that time. Because when that same coin was finally sold, in the aforementioned 2001 auction, it went as an AU-58, for a hammer price of $500. Could I have done better, had I really ‘known’ prooflike Morgan dollars and St.-Gaudens double eagles, the way I’ve grown to know a number of other series, over the years? Certainly. But I lacked a sufficient understanding of the characteristics of those series, across the board: strike, lustre, color, surface marks – the very characteristics we keep hammering at, in EAC, in an effort to educate copper collectors to avoid the same kind of pitfalls. You can’t learn about these things sitting on the sidelines, studying pictures of coins, and rationalizing prices paid – or even graphing their apparent price advances! You simply have to look at hundreds, at thousands, of coins, ‘in the metal,’ to intelligently build a collection. You need to know the series you collect well enough to tell at a glance if a given specimen is really VG-10 (or EF-45, or MS-63: whatever grade you’re looking for), regardless of what it may say on the holder. You especially need this insight to appreciate how grades are ‘pushed’ on rare varieties and mintmarks (yes, even in this Age of Slabs!). Over time, you’ll refine and redefine your collecting goals. And as you do so, it’s useful to sell some pieces, from time to time, for your own ‘reality check’ on the coin market. But what of the core collection(s) you retain? If you’ve learned your lessons well – if you’ve come to understand the difference between what is Rare and what is merely ‘pricey,’ and have purchased and saved accordingly, won’t you do much better than “34 one hundred-thousandths of one percent” when your collection is sold? Perhaps. But just like the Norwebs and Fords and Eliasbergs before you, your greatest profits from your collection may be the intangibles. Having recognized that, the timing of your ultimate collection’s sale – in, or after, your lifetime – may be reckoned as much in terms of emotional need, as financial opportunity. Unlike the executor of an estate, who usually can’t wait to liquidate Dad’s coins for cash, the living collector must periodically reassess the parallel growth of his or her collection, deciding ‘when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em.’ But the cashing out can be a little sad, even then, because it wasn’t about cash in the first place. 4 1810 Half Cent Die States Bill Eckberg The 1810 half cent is challenging, despite being relatively common with approximately 2,000 specimens estimated to exist. According to Mint records, a total of 215,000 half cents were struck and delivered in March and June of that year (Breen, 1983). Based on earlier speculations of R.W. Julian, Breen suggested that many of those were dated 1809 and that many of those delivered in 1811 were dated 1810. However, more recent research has shown that the Mint records of 1809, 1810 and 1811 almost certainly do reflect the numbers of coins bearing these dates, and therefore that it is unlikely that any 1809s were struck in 1810 or that any 1810s were struck in 1811 (Eckberg, 2000). There is only variety for the year, and despite the number in existence, very few are attractive or in high grade. Breen indicates that there are records for about 50 Mint State specimens, though Cohen (1982) gives his usual 7+ for the date. Manley (1998) states that “[m]any uncirculated pieces exist, although such specimens are rarely offered for sale”, suggesting that the MS population is not as large as some people think. The rarity of high-grade examples combined with the fact that very few of them are sharp and attractive makes collecting this date one of the significant challenges in half cents. The variety is characterized by striking weakness, particularly on the right side, and the obverse die is usually misaligned towards 2:00 (Figure 1). Given these limitations, can we describe die states for this variety? Manley suggests that there is a single die state, though he distinguishes surface differences between early and late strikes; Cohen illustrates two (with minimal description), and Breen lists four, differing mainly in the extent of minor reverse cracking. In the following discussion, I will illustrate three distinct die states based on the extent of major obverse defects. The keys to the die states are the dentilation, extent of a die defect in front of Liberty’s upper lip (“moustache”) and the extent and intensity of a die crack through the hair and throat (distinct from the hub defect visible on this and most Classic Head obverses). Other features that have been described by Breen cannot reliably be used to determine die states. Figure 1. Die state 1 (coins illustrated are collection of the author unless otherwise indicated). 5 The most obvious characteristic of die state 1 is full, sharp dentilation on the obverse and reverse. Even relatively low-grade examples should show most dentils. All stars are sharp, but may not show their centers. Note that the outer leaves at M, ER and IC are very weakly impressed into the die. This state is extremely rare, and because it is the sharpest and earliest, it is also the most desirable. Figure 2. Die state 2 (National Numismatic Collection, photo courtesy of Steve Carr). The most obvious characteristics of die state 2, which is by far the most common state, are a prominent crack from star 5 through stars 6 and 7 to the top hair lock, a crack through the hair to the neck, and a prominent dot on the middle of the jawline. Remarkably, previous authors have not taken notice of this defect, despite the fact that it is the most obvious, consistent difference between the first two die states described here. The outer leaves at M, ER and IC are now barely visible (apparently due to die regrinding?). Figure 3. Die state 3. 6 This very scarce state is prominently characterized by weakness throughout the obverse. The upper hair is very mushy; stars 8-12 merge into the field by the rim; dentilation is now very weak or absent. In addition, there is a prominent enlargement of the upper lip such that Ms. Liberty appears either prognathous or with a moustache. The following series of enlargements will serve to highlight the characteristic, significant changes that distinguish the different die states. In each case the left image is die state 1, the center is die state 2, and the right is die state 3. Figure 4. Progressive growth of a defect between the upper lip and nose. In state 1, the bridge of the nose, the upper lip and the filtrum are all clear and sharp (Fig. 4). In state 2, they are all indistinct and a defect appears to grow down from the nostril. This intensifies. Note also the “orange peel” effect from die erosion. In state 3 the defect of state 2 has intensified to the extent that the upper lip appears to have grown beyond the lower lip, making Ms. Liberty look prognathous or as if she has a moustache. Further die erosion weakens the face. Figure 5. Progressive formation of a die crack in the hair at the neck. State 1 (Fig. 5) shows a barely visible hub flaw, which produces a very weak crack-like defect from the upper right corner in the photo to its center and continuing into the neck at the right. This is visible only on high-grade specimens. In state 2 a prominent crack forms a gentle arc through the nearly horizontal portion of the hub flaw, continuing to the right below it. To the left this crack ends in an obvious dot on the jaw line. In state 3 these become much stronger in spite of the fact that detail elsewhere on the obverse is becoming far less distinct (e.g., note the deterioration of the detail in the hair). The black arrows pointing down and to the right show the hub defect on state 1 and 2 examples (only traces remain on the state 3 example). The white arrows pointing up show the location of the die crack in state 2 and 3. 7 Figure 6. Progressive weakening of the upper hair detail. Figure 6 shows the erosion of hair detail. In state 1 all locks are clear and sharp. By state 2 a few locks above ERT are weakening. In state 3 all of the upper hair locks are indistinct, and the letters of LIBERTY are weakening. The state 2 example is typical, but since the weakening is progressive, examples of state 2 may range from nearly as sharp as state 1 to nearly as weak as state 3. Figure 7. Progressive weakening at the borders of stars 11-13. Figure 7 illustrates progressive die weakening in the stars at the right. In state 1, all stars should show all of their points. By state 3 the outer borders of these stars have disappeared, as they merge into the field by the rim. Stars 8-10 also merge into the field on state 3 examples. Note that the stars in state 2 are more strongly struck than those in state 1, showing their radials in some cases, but the outside points are less distinct than in state 1. It is not certain whether state 1 exists with stars showing their radials; I have never seen such a coin, but high-grade examples are extremely rare. These images also show the progressive weakening of dentils from states 1-3. Figure 8 illustrates striking variations in state 2. The stars on the right may be struck well or poorly. The coin on the left is strongly struck at the right side but weaker at the left; that in the middle is reasonably well-struck on both sides; that on the right is strongly struck on the left but weak on the right. Breen asks “do [stars 8-13] ever show their centers?” They may, as shown by the coin on the left (photo courtesy of Mike Spurlock), but this condition is uncommon. The center specimen (National Numismatic Collection; photo courtesy of Steve Carr) has stars on both sides of Ms. Liberty that show centers. The usual condition in which stars 8-13 are substantially weaker than stars 1-7 is illustrated by the coin on the right (photo courtesy of Ed Fuhrman). 8 Figure 8. Striking variations in die state 2. Figure 9. Appearance and weakening of a die crack from star 6 to the uppermost hair lock. While an earlier state with a perfect die may exist, the crack illustrated in Figure 9 is present but extremely light in the earliest die state seen, becoming very strong in state 2. In state 3 it remains but becomes indistinct, as do the hair locks below L and the letters of LIBERTY. This is presumed to be due to the heavy erosion of the die that is characteristic of this state. This study has shown that there are three distinct die states of the 1810 half cent. The earliest die state is the sharpest and the most difficult to find. Die state 2 is by far the most common. The third die state, which is scarce, may appear to lack some of its diagnostics due to extreme die weakness. Because of striking variations and die weakness, there is no single diagnostic that should be relied on to assign die states. References Breen, W., 1983. Walter Breen’s Encyclopedia of United States Half Cents 1793-1857. Cohen, R. S., Jr. 1982. American Half Cents, the “Little Half Sisters”. Eckberg, W. R. 2000. Update on the 1809-1811 half cent population. Penny Wise, XXXIV. Manley, R. P. 1998. The Half Cent Die State Book—1793-1857. Thanks to the EARers who contributed to this report by providing informationon their specimens. Special thanks to R. Tettenhorst for his sage and generous advice. 9 AN INTERVIEW WITH R. “TETT” TETTENHORST Gregg A. Silvis The following interview took place on April 23, 2005 during the EAC meeting in Annapolis, MD. Tett has given me explicit permission to publish this interview. GS – Can you discuss your first experiences in coin collecting? I recall from a previous conversation that you were an early customer of Burdette Johnson in St. Louis. RT – Well, in the late 1930’s when I was a young lad, my cousin married a fellow by the name of Eric Newman who introduced me to coin collecting and introduced me to Burdette Johnson. I had saved up my allowance and went down there. I think I was interested in buying a proof Barber quarter which was probably around two dollars at that time. He laid out half a dozen or so, and naturally I picked the shiny one. And he said, “No, I won’t sell you that one.” And he pointed to one that had some beautiful blue toning. I was sure that he was trying to cheat me, he was trying to pawn off one of those tarnished coins on me rather than sell me the new looking one. But I bought it because he was intimidating. He was a very kind and gentle man, but he had a built-in scowl on his face. The lines at the corners of his mouth turned down deeply, so it looked like he was frowning all the time. As a ten-year old, I was totally intimidated. I took the coin over to Eric to tell him how I had been cheated by this fellow that he had sent me to. And Eric said, “No, no, no. Mr. Johnson gave you exactly the right instruction. You want a natural looking coin. Coins that age often have toning. It doesn’t detract from the value at all. The one that you got is a lovely specimen. The shiny one has undoubtedly been cleaned in some way.” So, I got my first coin and my first lesson from Burdette Johnson. I saved my allowance and bought a few other coins from him. However, a few years passed and I got interested in sports and in girls and I discontinued collecting coins for a while. It was about thirty years later in the late 1960’s when I resumed coin collecting and got interested in coppers. Like many half cent collectors, first I started collecting large cents. I had the Sheldon book and I was enchanted by that and the careful description of the varieties. I put together a collection of all the varieties of 1803, in low grade, except a couple of the very scarce ones. As I got to know more and looked at some auction results and so forth, I realized that putting together a high-grade complete collection of large cent varieties was beyond my ability, both financially and in time. I had collected some half cents and somebody introduced me to Roger Cohen at one of the auctions. I got interested and got a Gilbert book at that time; it was before Roger published his book. I got interested in half cents and realized that that was more doable and that half cents were very interesting. There were some extremely rare varieties, difficult to get. Some that didn’t exist in mint state. There were others that were readily available in high grade, red uncirculated at moderate prices. There were enough varieties to make it a challenge and not so many as to make it an impossibility. Furthermore, in large cents, there were some very affluent collectors who were competing for the top grade specimens and the prices were very high. I thought, by comparison, particularly considering the fact that the mintages of half cents were smaller than the mintages of large cents, the prices compared to the rarities were more reasonable. Though I don’t know who can say what something is intrinsically worth. At least by comparison they were more affordable than the large cents. And that’s how I became a half cent collector. In 1971, I met Darwin Palmer who was a copper collector and who told me about this new organization called Early American Coppers, Inc. 10