1811 Classic Head Half Cent. C-2. Rarity-3-. Close Date. AU-50 BN (NGC).

This handsome piece is deeply toned in dominant steel-brown with faded golden-brown highlights in the protected areas around the devices. Both sides are ideally centered on the planchet with uniformly bold striking detail throughout. The surfaces are smooth in hand, the texture hard and satiny. Problem free for the grade and thoroughly appealing, this wholly original example is sure to have no difficulty finding its way into an advanced early copper collection. The reported mintage for half cents during calendar year 1811 is 63,140 pieces. Based on the rarity of survivors bearing this date, however, it seems likely that most of the coins included in that mintage were from earlier-dated dies. In fact, numismatic researcher R.W. Julian has suggested that most of the 63,140 half cents struck in 1811 were dated 1810. Julian's estimated mintage for coins actually bearing the 1811 date is on the order of just 25,000 to 30,000 pieces, if not even fewer. Of the two known die marriages Cohen-2, offered here, is slightly more obtainable in today's market. Conversely, C-2 is scarcer than C-1 in high grades and, according to both Walter Breen (1983) and Ronald P. Manley (1998), this variety is unknown in Mint State. The finest examples known to these authors are at the AU level, including the Eliasberg, Norweb, Miles-Robison, Miller-French-Clarke, and Hall specimens. An exciting opportunity for the half cent specialist.

PCGS# 1135. NGC ID: 222S.