1798 Large Cent, is this an "8 over7"

[Dave2000]

1798 Large Cent, is this an "8 over 7"

I need some more eyes on this, hopefully some of you can tell me what you see. This is the 4th coin recovered from a Draped Bust Large Cent spill I found last weekend (details here: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/436683-large-cent-draped-bust-pocket-spill.html ). I was finally able to get a decent macro picture of the date (1798) with the benefit of oblique lighting and a magnification app.

There is an "8 over 7" variety of this coin, and it appears to me that this may be an example. If you look at the top (horizontal) portion of the second digit ("7") it appears to match up with a similar portion of a 7 underneath the last digit ("8"). Does anyone see that or is it just a regular "1798" coin? It wouldn't be particularly more valuable either way, but for cataloging and I.D. purposes, I want to get it right.

 

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[Groovedymond]

That's REALLY hard to see bud. The corrosion is really messing with my eyes on that one. I'm not sure if you could ever truly make that out.

My suggestion... Try to go by other features of the coin to identify if it's an overdate. I would check out largecents.net (Tom Deck's Site). He has cataloged a lot of large cents personally, as well as the Walter Husak collection. You could use that site as reference data to figure out if it's the overdate by other characteristics of the coin (besides the date).

 

[Dave2000]

Thanks, yeah it's tough to read-- I only did a little surface cleaning as I'm very conservative with coin cleaning (I pretty much don't do it), even though I think there is some detail on these coins but I think it's hidden pretty well. The other details (other than the date, like hair type) are currently extremely difficult to discern in their present state. I've been told to either peroxide or olive oil treat these, but I've never done that. Pics of all 4 DB Cents are in the link above-- the coins appear solid but crusty. Thanks for the link-- looks like a great resource.