THE 1794 STARRED REVERSE CENT

This month I'm writing about a coin that essentially needs no introduction. For most numismatists the mention of a "Starred Reverse Cent" immediately brings an exact vision of what coin is being discussed. But, for those of you who may be novices or are unfamiliar, the exact description is of a 1794 S-48 Large Cent with 94 tiny stars punched among the denticles on the reverse. I have in my library several books which have been written in their entirety about a single coin or variety and this rare large cent is one of them. Others include the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, an 1804 Dollar, the 1802 Half Dime, 1822 Gold Half Eagle, the 1793 S-15 Large cent, an 1838-O Half Dollar, and also a 1894-S Barber Dime to name a few. The 1794 Starred Reverse cent is even more specific, and it is not only being referred to by the date but by a specific Sheldon variety, S-48, which is one of dozens of known varieties for the date.

There has been much written regarding this coin but very little is known about the why's other then conjecture and guessing. Large cents have been collected and favored by collectors as far back as the time when they were being minted and later gained a large following after their discontinuance in 1857. Several monologues were written, and varieties identified but this Starred Reverse was not discovered until 1877, twenty years after the last large cent was minted. The discovery is amazingly documented as follows: In 1877 Henry C. Chapman, along with his brother S. Hudson Chapman, who were well known coin dealers and auctioneers along with Dr. Edward Maris, a Quaker physician were examining a group of large cents and one was picked up and Chap-man exclaimed, "Here is a die with minute stars around the reverse." Dr. Maris, an expert at the time on early coppers stated that 'this was previously unknown." This discovery coin was later offered on Feb 11-12 in 1880 by the Chapman brothers auction as part of the Samuel A. Biuspham Collection.

Within several years two others were discovered and as of today approximately 60 of this Sheldon S-48 are known to collectors. The 94 stars are punched among 83 denticles which are not evenly spaced between the denticles due to the different numbers, seven of them are even hidden under some of the denticles while only two are completely visible Most of the known examples are all in low grade with the finest grading PCGS AU-58, four others grade VF, a few Fines while the others are quite worn. In the past few decades several have actually been cherry-picked from hoards or groups of lower grade large cents and I suspect there still may be a few hiding out there.

The mystery as to the why and how this variety was created has been open to speculation and discussion ever since the variety was discovered. It rivals the "E" and "L" counterstamped 1815 and 1825 Bust quarters and similarly may never be fully understood. This is just what makes this hobby so interesting and compelling. There have been a number of theories put forward, one that I have run across most often is someone with an idle hour at the mint just decided to play around with a star punch on one of the dies. Interesting, but most likely not the actual reason. Another theory is that it was intended to be an anti-counterfeiting scheme, interesting, but with edge lettering in use at the time probably not the reason. One other speculation was that the stars represented the signers of the Declaration of Independence. There are 94 stars and only 56 signers of the Declaration, however. One final theory was that the stars were placed on pattern coinage planchets from 1792 that never got used then later pulled from storage and overstruck in 1794.

One of the more interesting, and possible plausible theories, is the one regarding the Wright pattern 1792 Eagle on Globe pattern quarter dollar. This pattern is of similar size to a large cent (both have a diameter of 29 mm) and this quarter pattern has a boarder of 87 small stars of roughly the same style. There are differences in the stars and they are not punch-linked to each other. From 1792 to 1794 there was certainly experimentation and trials and patterns which were struck at the fledgling mint. The starred reverse cent may have simply been nothing more than one of these experiments with border ornamentation. Unless some long-lost document or information is uncovered, we will probably never know for certain what was intended. In the meantime, the S-48 cent is of great numismatic interest and value with the AU specimen selling for $632,000 in Feb. of 2008 at a Heritage auction.

Author Pete Smith adds:

To visit Al Boka's web site, see:
Provenance Gallery of the Year 1794 (http://www.1794largecents.com/)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web