NEW BOOK: THE ARISTOCRAT: THE STORY OF THE 1793 SHELDON 15

The Aristocrat:
The Story of the 1793 Sheldon 15

This is a rather specialized book. It is about just one of the more than 300 known varieties of early United States cents, which were coined between 1793 and 1814. It is the second-rarest “collectible” variety in the series, with only twelve known.

When coin collecting took off in this country in 1857, the cents of 1793 were considered the most important of the entire series. This particular variety was designated “Sheldon 15” by Dr. William Sheldon in his classic work Early American Cents in 1949. In his 1958 revision of this work, Penny Whimsy, he referred to this variety as “The Aristocrat” because of its rarity and importance.

I acquired my S15 from Kagin’s sale of the Philip Van Cleave collection in 1986. This cent was the discovery coin for the variety, discovered by Sylvester S. Crosby around 1868. Crosby, famous for his epic work on colonial coins, The Early Coins of America, published in 1873, also had a significant interest in the cents of 1793. He wrote the descriptions of the varieties of the 1793 cents that were photographed for Joseph N. T. Levick’s plate of 1793 cents that was published in the April 1869 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics.

Both the obverse and the reverse of my S15 are pictured on Levick’s plate. In 1897 Crosby published a monograph on the topic, The United States Coinage of 1793—Cents and Half Cents. This book is so complete that only one new variety of 1793 has been discovered since its publication, and this only occurred eighty years later.

My motivation for this book began with the pedigree information that was written in the description of lot 5017 in the Kagin catalogue. Most of it came from Dorothy Paschal, a previous owner and “very good friend” of Dr. Sheldon. I found that the majority of this information was incorrect.

This got me started on trying to find out about the true provenance of this cent. It then escalated into finding the auction appearances of all S15’s. I started collecting every catalogue I could find that had an S15. The Dan Holmes sale in 2009 was the twenty-ninth appearance of this variety since its first in 1880.

I think I have written the type of book that I have always wanted to read. It includes the history, folklore, and stories on this rare variety of 1793 cent, and just as Crosby did in 1897, I am publishing it in an edition of 200 copies (However, unlike Crosby's book, it will cost more than $2.00).

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web