Draped Bust Large Cent

The one cent coin was important in the closing years of the 18th century in the United States. Although large, the big copper coins were very useful for small transactions. The U.S. Mint had inadequate machinery and poor quality copper at that time, inexperienced employees and very limited funds to work with. It usually cost more to produce a coin than its face value. Congress nearly gave up on the business of making coins on several occasions and had considered turning the business over to private companies.

The young U.S. Mint was often being attacked as being inefficient. The Philadelphia facility made many mistakes and disasters. Copper was hard to come by and was purchased in the form of planchet or blanks. The domestic copper was inferior and resulted in dark and rough flans that were called “black copper”. The copper was full of impurities so the coins minted from this copper wore rapidly and were of poor quality. Because of all this, most copper began to be imported from England.

The Draped Bust large cent was born in 1796 and was designed by Robert Scot. It was modeled after a drawing by Gilbert Stuart. Liberty has flowing hair, a ribbon behind her head and a drapery at her neckline. LIBERTY is above the bust and the date is below. On the reverse is ONE CENT that is encircled by an open wreath of two olive branches tied with a bow. UNITED STATES of AMERICA is around the wreath and 1/100 is between the ends of the bow. There are three separate types of reverses and each is different from one another concerning the leaves and the berries on the wreath. They are known as Type of 1794, Type of 1795 or Type of 1797. All three were used on the back of the 1796 cents and the last two were on the 1797. The last reverse stayed on the dates through the year 1807.

The lettering on the Draped Bust large cent was stamped into the dies by hand so many errors were made. Many lettering mistakes and spacing and positioning of the letters and date were done in error.

There were well over 16 million Draped Bust large cents made between 1796 and 1807. One date was particularly rare-1799. Collector Joseph Mickley searched for his birth year coin making the 1799 coin famous. Although many were minted, they are rare in all grades. Some believe that they ran in short supply due to the thousands of 1799 dated cents that were given to tribal chiefs in exchange for slaves, and that they were lost at sea on the way to Africa.

The Draped Bust design was replaced in 1808 by the Classic Head design.