Matron Head Large Cent

The Matron Head large cent featured an enlarged head of Liberty. The band holding the hair was replaced by a coronet and the word LIBERTY is in relief. The reverse shows a wreath. The term Matron Head comes from an author, Dr. William Sheldon, who wrote standard reference for cents struck from 1793 to 1814. He said that Liberty ‘resembled the head of an obese ward boss instead of a lady”.

The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia produced 51, 706,473 Matron Head large cents during its first 24 years from 1816 to 1839. The 1817 coin has fifteen stars on the reverse and it is still not known why. The standard is 13. Some say that it was an error while punching in the devices and that the stars were punched in too closely and stars were then added to balance the design.

The 1823 Matron Head large cent is rare in all grades. There are several generations of restrikes for the 1823 cents with each having larger and larger die breaks on the reverse. The years of 1835 through 1839 are the most collected of this series as several varieties were struck.

Grading these coins is easy due to the simple design. Wear shows first on the high points of the curled hair and the leaves. Proofs of the Matron Head large cent are very rare and were mostly made to give to visiting diplomats.