Cherry Picking According to Jack.......... (Collecting Griffin Rarities)

It’s really hard to be a Canadian large cent variety collector without knowing about Jack Griffin.  Jack was a long time collector and researcher from rural southern Ontario.  He was meticulous about documenting the detail he saw on various coins in his note books and on his 2x2 holders.  In 1992, Jack’s work was published with the assistance of Brian Cornwell as “Some Die Varieties of the Large Cents of British North America and Canada”.  This monograph listed almost 1,000 different die varieties spanning 1858-1920 for Canadian material and including Provincial ½ and cent issues as well.  This original work is hard to find but it is out there.  A couple of years back The Charlton Press republished the work in 3 separate monographs including photographs of a number of the varieties to aid in identification.

To be sure, Jacks work was not a complete variety catalog and he never sought to promote it as such.  The fact that the title says “Some” indicates that the publication of his notes was a snapshot in time.  His work did however serve to jump start variety collecting which had stalled after Hans Zoell’s efforts of the 1960’s.  New varieties are discovered all the time.  The definitive work on this is not yet written.  There are currently several researchers that are systematically picking away at uncovering and documenting die varieties. 

The top three questions on any variety collectors mind, in no particular order, are;

1. What is it?
2. How difficult is it to find?
3. What’s it worth?

Without making further comments on the limitations of the publications of Jacks work, he addresses the first two questions but not the third.  He documents his observations and gave each die variety a rarity rating

Griffin’s rarity scale was 1=very common to 10=extremely rare.  For reference here, 4=scarce, 7=almost rare, 8=rare.  He never used level 9 or 10.  Jack listed a mere twelve die varieties at rarity 7 and a further six at rarity 8.  The following table sums up what Jack felt were Canadian large cents with a rarity rating of 7 and 8 between the years of 1858 and 1901.  I personally use Turners more up to date reference for the 1858’s and 1859/8’s.  Several of these were featured in the 65^th Edition of the Charlton Standard Catalog of Canadian Coins.

Just for reference, Jack lists the rarity for a 1859 DP#1 as a 6, the 1859 DP#2 as a 4 and the 1884 Obverse one as a 6.  Happy Hunting .

Rarity	Year	Comments
8	1859	Small date with a slight 5/5. ONE CENT looks smaller
7	1859/8	1 in the date is re-punched and shifted left
7	1859/8	Narrow 9/8 with a slight 5/5 as well
7	1859/8	Narrow over wide.  8 re-punched and 5 re-cut
7	1859	Tall slim 5 over shorter 5 with a great amount of offset. O in ONE is re-cut
7	1859	The N in CENT is re-cut showing at the top and bottom
7	1859	The T in CENT is not filled in at the top, also at the foot
8	1881	Single serif N in CANADA and REGINA, same style as in 1876
8	1881	Die clash of obverse beads on the reverse in the leaf 8 and 9 position
7	1890	Die clash of reverse 0 under Victoria’s chin and beads under bust truncation
8	1893	9/9/9