Mint State 1794 S-32 'Venus Marina' Cent

1794 1C Head of '94. MS64 Brown PCGS. S-32, B-18, R.2. Bland MS60; CC-2. Noyes MS63; CC-2. Photo #22633. Our EAC Grade MS60.

Equivalents. Maris 18 (Venus Marina); Frossard 25.1; Doughty 39; Hays 26; McGirk 3-E1, 3-E2; Ross 17-R; Chapman 11; EAC 17; Encyclopedia 1668; PCGS #901374.

Variety. Fourth and sixth locks from bottom turn upward. Incomplete leaves below TA, above O and E in ONE, and below RI. The obverse appears on S-32, S-33, and S-34. The reverse appears on S-32 and NC-11. Lettered Edge, leaf points up.

Surfaces. Smooth olive surfaces with splashes of steel-brown color. Unevenly struck with the right obverse and reverse border weak, retaining numerous original planchet marks in the nearby fields. Nearly identical in strike and die state to the Herman Halpern specimen, lot 46 in the March, 1988 sale of that collection. It seems that the planchet was incorrectly fed into the Castaing machine. HUNDRED is only partially visible with the lower parts of each letter weak or absent.

Die State IV. A late die state with a full obverse rim break over LI. The reverse has a heavy crack through the first S and the wreath with extensive clash marks.

Appearances. The obverse and reverse are illustrated in Noyes (2006).

Census. Just two Mint State examples of this otherwise common variety are known. Both of these top two coins (the other one is from the Henry Miller Collection) have been known since the early 20th century.

Commentary. Despite the census records, Sheldon wrote in 1949 that he had never seen a Mint State example. A decade later, Sheldon was still unaware of these coins (or he graded them lower), observing: "The Venus Marina variety remains a collector's enigma, for although common there does not seem to be an available example at MS-60. The best we can offer are three in the 50's and a comparative abundance of nice examples at the F and VF levels." Today, half a century later, only two Mint State pieces are identified, and a total of just eight examples grade XF or better, per the Noyes census.

Provenance. Discovered in Boston; Thomas Elder (10/1907), lot 137; Virgil M. Brand; B.G. Johnson (St. Louis Stamp & Coin Co., 3/1943); Abe Kosoff; New Netherlands Coin Co. (9/1953), lot 248, $155; Floyd Starr (Stack's, 6/1984), lot 25, $9,900; Dr. Allen Bennett (2000).

Personality. Abe Kosoff was born in New York City on December 31, 1912, and died on March 19, 1983, in Palm Springs, California. A graduate of New York University, he started in the coin business in 1937. He opened Numismatic Gallery in 1939 and conducted a number of auctions in partnership with Abner Kreisberg until 1954. Kosoff conducted additional sales under his own name, including several significant large cent sales such as T. James Clarke, Sloss and Schwartz. He was a founder of the Professional Numismatists Guild in 1954 and served as president from 1954 to 1955 and from 1964 to 1965. Kosoff was a co-author of the Official American Numismatic Association Grading Standards for United States Coins and a columnist in Coin World and Numismatic Scrapbook magazine. He received the ANA Farran Zerbe Award in 1972 and was elected to the organization's Hall of Fame in 1982. (#35561)

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