1795 1C S-76a Lettered Edge, BN MS65BN 认证号37130017, PCGS号35720

Ron Guth

Large Cents produced at the Philadelphia Mint in early 1795 had lettered edges, as in prior years.  Later in the year, 1795 Large Cents had plain, unlettered edges.  This came about because of an official reduction in the weight of the individual Large Cents from 208 to 168 grains.  The effect of this change was to save money on the production of Large Cents, but it also reduced their thickness so that edge lettering could not be applied properly.  Thus, all the Large Cents after 1795 (with the exception of the experimental Gripped Edges) have plain, unlettered edges.  Because the denomination already appeared at the base of the reverse, the edge lettering was redundant, nor was its existence necessary to prevent clipping (which never occurred on Large Cents anyway).

Sheldon 76a is the last of the heavyweight Large Cents.  Lighter version were made later in the year using the same dies -- these are known as S-76b.  However, some of the heavyweight planchets bypassed the edge lettering process, thus we have a few S-76a's without edge lettering -- these are known as S-76a/b, they are generally considered to be mint errors, and they are not required in a complete die variety collection.  To make things even more interesting, an S-76 exists with edge lettering on a thin planchet.