Penny Whimsy A revision of Early American Cents, 1793-1814: An Exercise in Descriptive Classification with Tables of Rarity and Value - Hardcover

Sheldon, William Herbert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0880000872 ISBN 13: 9780880000871

Publisher: Quarterman Publications, 1976

Synopsis

In addition to 340 pages are 54 plates full of coins. ~ Sheldon's influence is still keenly felt. Open an auction catalog or read a fixed-price list containing early large cents and you will find Sheldon's numbering system still employed. Read that a coin ranks within 'condition census' and you find a link to Sheldon's system for classifying the six finest-known large cents of each date. ~ Even if you don't collect large cents, you are still touched by his influence. For it was he who developed the original quantitative numbering system used in grading coins, inlcuding MS-60, MS-65 and MS-70. ~ In 1958, revisions were made to 'Early American Cents,' with the collaboration of Dorothy I. Paschal and Walter Breen, Sheldon said of his work, it was a lighthearted one 'almost a whimsy' thereby, the project came to be known as 'the penny whimsy.' ~ It is by this name Sheldon's classic was reprinted and is best known today. Since supply of the old book had run out and so needed to be reprinted, Sheldon decided it must first be brought up to date.This revision undertakes to provide as complete a report as is not possible on each variety of early cent, and on the half dozen finest coins extant for each variety. They revised the condition census for a variety whenever a previously unknown coin proved fine enough to win a place among the recognized top six. There are about nineteen hundred of the condition census coins. On these, a notebook was kept for one hundred and twenty months.

About this edition

• Publisher: Quarterman Publications
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0880000872
• ISBN 13: 9780880000871
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340