Just for Fun
It’s safe to say that most collectors of United States coins seek pieces that are certified, graded, and encapsulated. Collectors might like to leave lesser specimens “raw,” but they should certify key-date and high-grade coins to preserve them. A few holdouts remain among members of the Early American Coppers (EAC) club, who might prefer their large cents, half cents, and pre-federal coppers run free or live in coin boards. I’ve been a member of EAC for nearly 40 years, and I understand both sides of the debate. However, it’s almost inevitable that such coins will be certified when they finally are sold at auction. That’s just a market reality.
Still, it can be fun to collect lower-value pieces and enjoy them as they are without worrying about grading. I have encapsulated all my better coins. This includes the 130 or so that I and Frank Van Valen use for the ANA Summer Seminar class on collecting U.S. type coins. A lot of the circulated pieces, however, are housed in coin boards or albums.
I collect and deal in antique coin boards, and at any given time I have a couple hundred in inventory awaiting new owners. From time to time, I’ve elected to pull one from stock and fill it with inexpensive coins. These sets are not for sale; they’re just for my own satisfaction. One such board contains the collection of large cents shown here.
Whitman was the only publisher to include large cents among its roster of 11×14-inch coin boards during the 1930s. In its second edition of boards, Whitman produced a pair for cents dated 1793-1825 and 1826-57. These have flocked faces, which the company called a “suede” finish, and they are scarce but not truly rare. Whitman’s third edition has the same unflocked paper as the company’s blue folders, but these boards are very rare. By choosing to fill an 1826-57 board from this edition, I was passing up an opportunity to sell an item worth about $150. However, I don’t like the less expensive flocked variety, which tends to shed!
This board has 10 dateless openings at the bottom labeled VARIETIES in what otherwise is a 1-per-year collection. I elected to fill these blanks with 1816-25 cents so the collection would begin with the new type adopted in 1816. My set is missing the more expensive 1823-24 cents, but not solely because of their cost. To save money, Whitman used the same die cut for this board that it did for the 1793-1825 one. Whitman sized two of the “variety” slots for the smaller diameter of Chain cents! Thus, they remain vacant in my collection. Otherwise, I would have spent the extra cash filling them with the two missing dates.
To say it was fun to build this collection is an understatement. I didn’t prioritize the grades of the cents, so long as each coin had original, damage-free surfaces and looked good alongside the others. Not surprisingly, the later dates have more detail, which reflects their greater availability and lower cost. I did make a special effort to obtain the “Booby Head” variety of 1839, since that portrait is unique to the year. I also sought out a “Small Date” variety of the 1857 cent for which the mint used a half-cent punch by mistake.
The set was commenced at one of the major coin shows when I dropped by the tables of several EAC dealers. I only found a few suitable coins, however, as their inventories were too nice to have common dates in lower grades. I assembled the rest of the collection through eBay purchases, with a few upgrades along the way. The most expensive coin was the somewhat scarce 1857, which I obtained for $110. The least expensive piece was the 1845, which was priced at just $12. The others mostly fell within the $20 to $40 range, making for a pain-free shopping experience.
I considered completing a 1793-1825 board as well, but the diameter of the 1793 opening requires a rare Chain cent. This fact, along with the high value of 1799 cents, proved too discouraging. As it is, Whitman’s third-edition board for that span is so rare that I haven’t had a duplicate to spare for such a project.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2020 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).