Walter Breen
Since then, still other reasons have emerged for the impossibility of simply updating Sheldon's cent book. When I received the assignment from Jack Collins to work on this project, one of the first unsolved problems I had to deal with was the chronological order of varieties. Not even Sheldon had managed to construct a completely satisfactory sequence consistent with both style and die states, and he admitted it. Particularly for 1796- 1800, and most of all for 1794, the problem was in his methodology, ultimately in the way the coins were made.
For Sheldon, the special charm of 1794 cents largely reflected his belief that their heads and wreaths were all hand engraved, (Early American Cents, p. 134, Penny Whimsy, p. 133.) as they had been in 1793. In later years, the cent heads were identical, imparted to dies of different dates by the same device punch, and the coins had less individuality. Twenty years before Early American Cents, Samuel Hudson Chapman had remarked on the diversity and the progressive degradation of styles, from the Heads of 1793 to the Head of 1795-a combination he correctly found almost impossible to reconcile with all being by the same engraver. A few years later, collectors were already becoming aware that the Heads of 1793 were from the old Joseph Wright head punch and that the two latest styles were from two head punches, which I attributed to John Smith Gardner. What of the rest?
The answer literally came in a dream. On the morning of June 2, 1984, I dreamed I was superimposing slides of 1794 cents, holding them up to the light, and greeting the result with surprise and delight. When I awoke, I asked Jack Collins if he had such a set of slides, whereupon the dream promptly came true. I found then and there that all of Scot's heads were made from one or another device punch, but with the hair re-engraved on each die by hand. I also found that at least four wreath punches were used for many of the reverses, berries and berry stems being added by hand, with occasional leaves lengthened or an extra one added. This meant that the whole sequence had to be re-examined, if possible grouping all heads sharing one device punch, (David Proskey first mentioned this in his original 1879 serial.) all reverses sharing the same wreath punch. The "Fallen 4" would also have to precede the Starred Reverse, to acknowledge the discovery that the two reverses were one and the same die (Editor's note: The author believed these were the same die although others feel they are not the same. Further discussion can be found for the appropriate varieties in the 1794 chapter.) before and after stars were added, along with other minor retouching.
Some years earlier, I had worked up an emission sequence for 1796 through 1798 based on die states; since then R. W. Julian has published the delivery dates and quantities of coins struck on the different kinds of planchets used in those years. A study of the cents' edges has helped identify each of the major planchet sources, and forced further revision of emission sequences. The latter no longer looked even slightly like Sheldon's.
As if that were not enough, Sheldon's basic equation for determining market value-already recognized as inoperative as early as 1956-proved to be a statistical artifact, a by-product of the pre-World War II price structure for 1794s. This meant that the new book would have to omit basal values. Then what of values? The only reasonably honest procedure is the historical one: auction records, exactly as in the half cent book. This meant, among other things, expanding the Condition Census to include not only the top six, but also a larger number, varying with the date, variety, and rarity. (This was partly to discourage cent owners from misrepresenting known lower-grade specimens as new discoveries to be added to the Condition Census.) With all these changes in structure and basic assumptions, the book ceased to be even nominally a revision of Sheldon's old standard text and had to become a completely new project.
A few other lines from the half-cent book apply equally here too:
We are farther now from Sheldon's 'science of cent values' than we were in 1950. Dr. Sheldon's dream failed in that respect, but his other dream-that of a scientific description and classification system for coins, if not for human beings-is in process of coming true; and the present book is another chapter in that ongoing dream. Its intent is less to prescribe and recommend than to describe, so collectors themselves can more wisely decide what they want to pay for their prizes. (Walter Breen, Walter Breen's Encyclopedia of United States Half Cents, South Gate, California: American Institute of Numismatic Research, 1984, P: 3. Hereinafter, Half Cent Encyclopedia.)