1823 Matron Head Cent. N-2. Rarity-2. AU-58 (PCGS). CAC.

1823 Matron Head Cent. N-2. Rarity-2. AU-58 (PCGS). CAC.，Lovely medium chocolate-brown surfaces exhibit accents of olive and faded tan. The surfaces are glossy and lustrous throughout. A couple of faint, nearly microscopic scratches are noted on the portrait, just left of the ear and are hardly worth mentioning. There is good definition in the stars, though not all are complete though the centers. Struck from the second of five obverse die states described by Noyes (B/A), this with two separate fusings of dentils, near stars 4 and 5, and right of star 6. These later connect and a small angled cud falls out between them. The most recent appearance of an 1823 N-2 graded by a third party service at this level prior to our July 2015 offering of the present example was the November 2014 sale of the Colonel Green-Eric Newman coin. That coin, graded AU-58 by NGC, sold for $27,730. In January 2013, we sold the Cardinal Collection specimen, graded AU-58 by PCGS for more than $38,000. In the Noyes Census, the present coin is tied with both the Newman and Cardinal coins at the same grade, and they do appear to be quite similar, though the present coin exhibits the best strike of the three. This cent traces its pedigree to what is the most famous American cabinet and was off the market for nearly two decades prior to its 2015 appearance.，From the Q. David Bowers Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers and Merenas) sale of the Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. Collection, May 1996, lot 555; our sale of the Twin Leaf Collection of United States Large Cents, Part I, July 2015, lot 2111. Eliasberg Collection sale lot tag and collector tag with attribution and provenance notes included.，