Collectors interested in United States copper large cents, issued from 1793 through 1857, have numerous ways to collect coins representing each of the six types that constitute the production.
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All images courtesy of HeritageCoins.com.
Collectors who can't afford an 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar, called the "king of coins" by some, can still acquire a North American 1804 silver dollar, but struck in Mexico City (top). A Class I example of the real rarity is the lower coin shown.
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Five different nations commissioned the United States Mint to strike copper cent or centavo coins in 1943, a suitable alternative to the real rarity, the 1943 Lincoln copper cent, upper left. The list includes Cuba, above and Guatemala, left, as well as El Salvador, Fiji and Surinam (the Netherland Guiana).
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Some coin rarities aren't as rare as many collectors may have been led to believe.
An 1804 silver dollar is but one coin that collectors of most means should be able to afford.
Skeptics may arise, but bear with us. Collectors desiring a real, historical 1804 silver dollar struck in the Americas, and not one of the myriad copies, can find them at relatively affordable rates.
The same can be said for the elusive 1943 copper cent struck by the U.S. Mint.
Much like a politician's linguistic two-step, our wording is the key to this particular riddle: if you look slightly south, to Mexico, you can collect a silver dollar, of absolute North American origin, struck in 1804.
As for 1943 copper cents struck by the U.S. Mint, among the many world coins struck at the U.S. Mint in 1943 are cent (or centavo) coins, from five different countries ranging from Cuba to Surinam (Netherlands Guiana).
1804 silver dollar
The 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar is a fabled coin in numismatic circles.
Although 15 1804 Draped Bust silver dollars are known, none were actually made that year.
While the Philadelphia Mint recorded delivery of silver dollars in 1804, those coins were likely struck from earlier dated dies.
The federal government halted production of silver dollars in 1804 as silver dollars were exported for their bullion value rather than circulating domestically. The Mint would not resume production of the denomination for circulation until 1836.
Researchers categorize 1804 Draped Bust dollars into three classes.
The eight surviving Class I examples of 1804 Draped Bust dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint circa 1834 for inclusion in sets of coins to be given as gifts on behalf of President Andrew Jackson by a State Department envoy on a diplomatic mission to the Far East.
A unique 1804-dated dollar with the same obverse used in 1834 and a new reverse die bearing a slightly different design struck on a Swiss coin survives as the lone Class II type. It is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Researchers believe five Class II 1804 Draped Bust silver dollars were struck circa 1860, possibly as early as 1858, all with plain edges.
The coins were struck by parties within the Philadelphia Mint, without legal authority, for sale to coin collectors and dealers.
By 1858 the existence of the Class I 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar was well known in the collector community, and several pieces not used as diplomatic gifts had gone into collections.
Four of the five Class II coins were apparently sold or traded and placed into private collections, but publicity about the unauthorized production and sale of the pieces led Mint officials to recall the pieces. Three examples were returned, while a fourth is unaccounted for.
Although the recovered pieces where supposedly melted, they may have been kept and given lettered edges, and included among the coins sold to collectors and dealers about 1876. These pieces, bearing lettered edges, are the Class III coins.
Six Class III coins are known. Three of them are in museums. The Linderman coin, graded Proof 63, is in the National Numismatic Collection; the Idler example, graded Proof 62, is at the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and the Driefus-Rosenthal specimen, graded Extremely Fine 40, is in the holdings of the American Numismatic Society in New York City.
The two other remaining Class III examples in collectors' hands, the Berg-Garrett coin and the Davis example, are graded Extremely Fine 40.
Would-be rarity
The would-be rarity, the 1804 Mexican silver dollar, is denominated 8 reales.
It depicts King Charles IV, and was struck at the Mexico City Mint.
The 8-real coin is a multiple of the silver real (8 reales is one "piece of eight"). The piece of eight is the Spanish equivalent of the taler, from which the dollar takes its name.
America "based its coinage of the piece of eight, but its value was expressed as a unit – a dollar – rather than a multiple of another unit," writes Richard Doty in The MacMillan Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatics.
At the time, and until 1857, Spanish silver coinage circulated throughout the young U.S. republic as legal tender, so a Mexican silver dollar dated 1804 is truly an American silver dollar.
The legitimacy of its date and usage add to its colorful story.
One Very Fine 20 example, graded by Professional Coin Grading Service, sold in a Heritage Auction Galleries sale May 16, 2006, for $138, a price within the financial reach of most collectors.
1943 copper cent
Another elusive U.S. numismatic rarity is the 1943 Lincoln copper cent.
In 1943 the cent was purposely struck on a zinc-coated steel planchet rather than the usual 95 percent copper planchet. The United States was involved in World War II and copper was needed for the war effort.
The 77th Congress authorized the wartime cent with Public Law 815. The metal content of the cent was changed from the 95 percent copper composition to a low grade carbon steel base with a .005-inch thick zinc coating that was deposited electrolytically as a rust preventative.
No one knows for sure how, but a few – some speculate about two dozen – copper planchets were mixed in with the zinc-coated steel planchets and were struck with 1943 dies. The authentic 1943 Lincoln copper cents are highly prized.
If you are willing to stretch your definition just a bit, literally millions of 1943 copper cent coins were struck at the U.S. Mint that you can collect.
Five nations contracted with the United States Mint to strike cent coins during 1943, according to research by Coin World's Ed Fleischmann, published in book form in Foreign Coins Struck at Mints in the United States by Phillip Steiner and Michael Zimpfer.
The would-be pretenders to the rarity include 1-centavo coins from Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala.
El Salvador's coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint; the other two were struck at the Philadelphia Mint.
In addition, the San Francisco Mint struck a 1-cent coin for Fiji and the Philadelphia Mint struck a 1-centstukken coin for Surinam.
Four of these 1-cent coins do not match the exact composition of the United States rarity: Cuba, Guatemala and Surinam's would-be rarities, all struck in Philadelphia, used an alloy of 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc, according to Fleischmann's research.
Fiji's 1-cent coin was not far off from the others, containing 65 percent copper and 35 zinc.
The 1-centavo coin for El Salvador does match the U.S. composition, containing 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc. Tin, which represented about 1 percent of the bronze alloy used for the cent since 1864, was dropped from the U.S. denomination in 1942 because the metal had to be transported by ship through waters patrolled by German U-boats waiting to sink all Allied shipping they encountered.
Tin was returned to the U.S. cent composition in 1947.
1964 silver dollar
Mexico is home to another would-be rarity: the 1964 silver dollar.
More than 300,000 1964-D Peace dollars were struck at the Denver Mint in 1965, but none was ever released and the coin is unknown in private or government hands today.
While Treasury officials were discussing the removal of silver from U.S. coinage, special interests persuaded Congress to legislate the minting of new silver dollars, last struck in 1935. A total of 45 million coins were authorized by the Act of Aug. 3, 1964.
The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered silver dollars into production; the date of 1964 on the coins resulted from a date freeze in effect in 1965 and 1966. To speed production and the expected distribution (to be limited to the West, the only place silver dollars circulated), the Peace dollar designs were used and the coins were struck at the Denver Mint. The facility struck an estimated 316,076 pieces.
The reality of the silver shortage meant that none of the dollars were officially released into circulation.
All 1964-D Peace dollars were eventually melted, although rumors continue that some escaped the Mint. At least one person who was an employee of the Denver Mint at the time insists that the coins were never offered to employees, directly contradicting one particular rumor.
Treasury officials would probably consider it illegal to own a 1964-D Peace dollar. At this time, no one outside the Mint has come forward even anonymously to publicly report having seen a 1964-D Peace dollar.
The would-be stand-in for this rarity is a silver peso from Mexico. The peso is the modern-day equivalent to the 8-real coin. OK, so Mexico's silver peso in 1964 only contained .100 fine silver, but it is a silver dollar-sized coin, matching the requirements for this exercise in numismatic legerdemain.
With a mintage of 15,615,000, the coin is relatively affordable and accessible, listing in the December/January 2008 issue of WorldWide Coins, for bullion value for all grades lower than Uncirculated. Even an Uncirculated example should be obtainable for about $2, and a Brilliant Uncirculated example for $2.50.
These are some of the examples of coin "rarities" that just about any collector can own. So they aren't the real thing (or the real U.S. thing), but they come pretty close, and are a lot easier to find and to afford.
