1798 Draped Bust Large Cent S-173 Obverse Cud

Description

This 1798 Draped Bust large cent, identified as Sheldon S-173 in the Second Hair Style, displays an obverse cud die break where a piece of the die broke away from the rim just outside the letters "RTY" in LIBERTY, leaving a raised featureless area on the struck coin. Cud die breaks occur when a section of the die rim fractures and the broken piece falls completely away from the die body, creating a void in the die face that fills with metal during each subsequent strike, producing a smooth, raised blob on the finished coin. Robert Scot's Draped Bust design, introduced in 1796 and produced through 1807 for large cents, features Liberty facing right with flowing drapery at the bust — the Second Hair Style variant showing a slightly modified arrangement of Liberty's hair compared to the earlier rendition. The 1798 large cent was struck at Philadelphia, the nation's sole mint facility, during a period when hand-operated screw presses and individually prepared dies meant that die failures were common and well-documented by subsequent numismatic researchers. The Sheldon numbering system, developed by Dr. William H. Sheldon in his seminal 1949 reference "Early American Cents," assigns die variety numbers to early large cents based on specific obverse-reverse die combinations, with S-173 identifying one particular pairing for 1798. The location of the cud at RTY in LIBERTY places the break along the upper right quadrant of the obverse, an area where the peripheral lettering meets the rim and where stress concentrations during striking can initiate fractures. This variety provides tangible evidence of 18th-century minting technology limitations, where die steel quality and coining press mechanics produced failures now prized by collectors as die variety specimens.

Attribution History

• Discovered by NumisDexDealer
• Sheldon S-173