Magnificent coins from an extraordinary collection of large cents featuring every one of the Sheldon number varieties from 1796 through 1814 will land in new collections when they are sold January 9 in Heritage's The COL Steven K. Ellsworth Collection of US Large Cents 1796-1814 US Coins Signature® Auction as part of the FUN Convention in Orlando.

"1796 was a transitional year in American numismatics," says Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. "That was the year the Mint switched from the Liberty Capped Bust design to the Draped Bust design. This collection starts with the Draped Bust coins, and many of the coins are the finest known, or at least one of the finest known examples."

A collector since he was in middle school, Ellsworth is one of "the most celebrated collectors of these early large cent varieties," a longtime numismatist who enjoys a broad reach within the collecting community.

"Back when these coins were minted, they were the people's money," Ellsworth said in a 2022 interview with PCGS. "These one-cent coins are what people used to buy bread, horseshoes and the other things that people used to buy. If you had a silver dollar or a $2.50 gold piece, you were carrying a lot of money. But large cents were spent on everything, and some of these coins saw thousands of uses ... In some cases the finest-known example of a certain variety may be AG3 or G4. Anything XF or over can be exceedingly rare."

Significant highlights from the collection include, but are not limited to:

A 1799 S-189 R2 XF45 PCGS, CAC Approved - the famous "Abbey" cent - has a provenance of 180 years, one of the longest unbroken ownership chains for a US large cent. More importantly, it is the finest that CAC has approved, and has been called the most important 1799 cent. The "Abbey" cent moniker can be traced back to the fact that one of its earliest owners was Lorenzo H. Abbey, a coin collector during the 19th century. In numismatics, it is a rare distinction to be remembered for a single coin, one typically reserved for extraordinary pieces like the 1804 silver dollar or the 1913 Liberty nickel.

An 1801 S-217 R6+ AU58 PCGS is the finest known example of this very rare variety, in spite of slight imperfections. Included in the coin's provenance are stints in the collections of Dr. William H. Sheldon, Barney William "Barney" Bluestone and Walter J. Husak.

A 1798 S-178 R5+, Style II Hair, Reverse of 1795, VF35 PCGS is the discovery coin for the variety, first identified by Philadelphia large cent collector James A. Walker, who joined the ANA in 1909, prior to 1913. Both sides were plated on page 305 in the June 1913 issue of The Numismatist in an article by Dr. Charles E. McGirk announcing the new variety. This is the plate coin for the variety in the Breen encyclopedia and in the 1991 Noyes reference.

An 1803 S-264 R4+, Large Date, Small Fraction, VF20 PCGS is a sharply struck, nicely detailed example of this classic rarity, a "Famous Four" variety that is one of the keys to a "Redbook" set of early cents. It is the plate coin for the variety in the 2000 Breen encyclopedia, and comes with a nice provenance. It is one of just two graded in VF20, with just three others carrying higher grades.

An 1810 S-285 R2 MS66 Red & Brown PCGS comes with an unbroken provenance that can be traced back for more than a century, a provenance that includes several of the "heavy hitters" in the history of large cent collecting, including Colonial collector Hillyer C. Ryder, who was the author of The Colonial Coins of Vermont and The Copper Coins of Massachusetts, which were published in the American Journal of Numismatics in 1919. Both series are still attributed by Ryder numbers. He served the Putnam County National Bank for more than 50 years and signed National currency as the cashier of that bank, and was a member of the New York Numismatic Club and the American Numismatic Association.

The Ellsworth catalog was written by Heritage senior numismatist Mark Borckardt and Bob Grellman of Heritage's partner-firm for this event, Early Cents Auctions.

Images and information about all lots in The COL Steven K. Ellsworth Collection of US Large Cents 1796-1814 US Coins Signature® Auction can be found at HA.com/1369.