The Half Cent Coinage of 1825-1831
While there has always been a strong demand for the large copper cents of the United States, the same cannot be said for the half cent. There is a growing number of collectors specializing in our smallest copper coin, however, as the history behind it is fully as interesting as any other coin of this country.
The increase in half cent collecting over the past few decades is due primarily to books written by Roger Cohen, Walter Breen, William Eckberg and Ed Fuhrman. The first three books were published some years ago, but the Fuhrman books are recent and very well done. There is also a group (“Half Cents”) on Facebook hosted by Mr. Fuhrman that is well worth visiting.
The half cent owes its existence to the January 1791 report on coinage made to Congress by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. In part he noted that: “Pieces of very small value are a great accommodation … to the poor by enabling them to purchase, in small portions, and at a more reasonable rate, the necessaries of which they stand in need. If there are only cents, the lowest price … will be a cent; if there are half cents, it will be a half cent, and, in a great number of cases, exactly the same things will be sold for a half cent, which, if there were none, would cost a cent.”
The first half cents were coined in midJuly 1793 although in lesser quantities than the cent. This remained generally true through the early 1800s when cent production was the first concern of the Mint and half cent coinage was usually an afterthought.
As early as 1798, Philadelphia Mint Director Elias Boudinot was able to arrange for a regular supply of large cent blanks. These were made by Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, England. This arrangement was extended to half cents in 1799 and from that time, with minor exceptions, all of the copper cents and half cents were struck on planchets prepared outside the Mint. Beginning in 1804, the coinage of half cents was very heavy but Mint officials had difficulty in balancing supply against demand. By 1811, so many half cents were in public use, and with little real marketplace demand, that coinage was stopped after mid-year.
From 1811 to 1824, there was little interest at the Mint in resuming the coinage of half cents, but occasional requests were made to obtain small sums. In August 1824, Director Samuel Moore wrote the Boulton firm in England to inquire about obtaining half cent planchets. The price asked was found acceptable and in December 1824
the director ordered 10 tons of blanks, about 1.87 million pieces.
The needed planchets, in 67 sturdy casks, were shipped on board the Montezuma and Algonguin in the late spring of 1825. The copper arrived at the Philadelphia docks by early August and was soon unloaded. Oddly enough, little was done by Chief Coiner Adam Eckfeldt towards using the freshly arrived planchets. It was not until Director Moore decided that there was sufficient demand that the blanks were sent to the coining rooms. In late December, 63,000 pieces were struck. It would appear that the director was correct in holding off the beginning of half cent coinage. The newly struck coins met with a sluggish demand from banks and businesses, and it was not until the early summer of 1826 that all had been paid out to the public.
Moore was not interested in new designs for such coinage, and the 1825 half cents are virtually identical to those struck in 1811. The same obverse and reverse hubs were used to create the dies, although minor improvements were made by Chief Engraver William Kneass. The original hubs had been executed by Assistant Engraver John Reich in 1808 and were still in usable condition.
With the last of the 1825 coinage paid out by June 1826, the chief coiner prepared to resume the striking of half cents. It appears that the 1825-dated dies were still in good condition and Eckfeldt continued to use them. How many coins were struck with the old dies is unknown, but one estimate says that perhaps 80,000 pieces of the 1826 coinage were dated 1825. At that point, perhaps late August, an obverse die dated 1826 was placed in the press. The entire 1825-dated coinage, of which perhaps 140,000 to 150,000 were made, came from only three dies, two obverses and one reverse. The differences in the obverse dies are minor and of interest strictly to specialists; most collectors are content with acquiring just the date. According to the price guide that appears in Numismatic News, in VF-20 the book value is $125, while an XF-40 is calculated to be worth $375.
There are two varieties of the 1826 coinage. One of the obverses is interesting in that it shows a horizontal “6” (in the date) under the regular vertical “6.” The feature is rather faint and can normally be seen only on high- grade specimens. Even when we assume that perhaps 80,000 half cents struck in 1826 were dated 1825,
this still leaves about 150,000 dated 1826 and struck in that year. The total mintage in 1826 was 234,000.
The higher mintage of the 1826 is not reflected in the book value. The prices given above for 1825 are virtually duplicated for 1826, the only real difference being strictly uncirculated. The collector will have little trouble finding this date, and the main problem is locating the best specimen at the lowest price.
The larger mintage of 1826 was more than public demand could handle, and there was no coinage of half cents in 1827 as a fair number of coins were still on hand. Somewhat over 60,000 half cents were paid out that year, indicating that in the late 1820s the half cent was not used all that much by the public. In the same year, more than 2 million cents were issued by the Philadelphia Mint, which gives a degree of perspective. At length, in 1828, the remainder of the half cents coined in 1826 was paid out and the director ordered resumption of the coinage. For reasons not clear at this late date, the coinage of half cents in the last quarter of the year 1828 was very heavy, with 606,000 pieces delivered by Chief Coiner Adam Eckfeldt. Considering the relatively light demand at that time, there must have been indications of future strong public need. This did not prove to be the case, however, although more than 100,000 pieces were paid out by the end of 1828.
There are two rather distinct varieties for 1828, easily differentiated. The first has the usual 13 stars on the obverse while the second has only 12. (There are two different obverses for the 13- star variety.) Because both kinds were coined in large numbers, the odd 12- star obverse is actually worth somewhat less than a comparable 1825 half cent.
In the mid-1890s, a coin dealer named Benjamin Collins made a lucky purchase when he obtained about 1,000 1828 half cents (the 13- star variety) in uncirculated condition, someone having laid these aside more than 60 years earlier. Collins sold them to collectors over the next several years.
Even though distribution of the half cents was relatively slow, in August 1829 more than 400,000 pieces were still on hand awaiting marketplace orders, Director Moore inexplicably ordered coinage to resume in the latter part of 1829. Perhaps the planchets had begun to corrode and needed to be struck or it may simply be that coinage in other areas was light and Moore needed to keep the workmen occupied.
The amount of half cents struck in 1829 came to 487,000, but it is thought that dies of 1828 were used for part of this mintage, just as 1826 dies are believed to have been used in 1828. This overlapping of dies means, of course, that we will never know the true mintages of half cents by date for the late 1820s. There was only one pair of dies used for the 1829-dated coinage, and values are well within reason. In VF-20, we find a book value of $125, according to the Numismatic
News price guide, while an XF-40 piece will cost about $185. For the avid half cent collector, these values seem reasonable. Walter Breen indicates in his book on half cents that proofs were made for this denomination in the 1820s, but their existence is doubted by some and defended by others. It is often the case for proof coins of this era that the quality is not quite what we expect, causing some question as to whether a given piece was actually made as a proof or is simply a high-quality circulation strike.
At the end of 1829, the Mint treasurer had on hand several hundred-thousand half cents, an amount that could reasonably be expected to last for several years given the general level of marketplace demand at this time. In fact, less than 100,000 pieces were distributed in all of 1830, which accounts for the lack of coinage in that year.
Considering the large number of half cents on hand at the beginning of 1831, the decision to prepare dies dated 1831 and to strike a limited number of coins is certainly an unexpected decision on the part of the Mint director. In the context of the times, however, it made sense. When Samuel Moore became director in July 1824, after the death of his predecessor Robert Patterson, he found a mint that was technologically backward. Chief Coiner Adam Eckfeldt did the best that he could under the circumstances, but it was clear to all concerned that we were well behind the European mints, especially Paris and London, in the quality of our coinage.
Beginning in 1827, Moore did everything within his power to bring the Philadelphia Mint up to world standards. Congress was not all that generous when it came to providing money for improvements, but Moore had been a Congressman and had maintained contacts with key Representatives and Senators. This clout enabled him, in due course, to pry a large appropriation out of the legislators for a new mint, one that would in time put the United States back in the forefront. The cornerstone of the new structure was laid on July 4, 1829, and it was fully occupied in January 1833.
In the meantime, Moore worked closely with Chief Engraver William Kneass and Coiner Adam Eckfeldt to improve the dies and techniques then being used to produce coinage. The team began with the smaller silver and gold coins, and by the late 1820s considerable improvement in quality had been achieved. The change can be seen in the dimes of 1828, when the diameter was decreased from about 18.8 mm to 18.5 mm. This does not seem like much, but in coinage it was and both the quality and ease of striking were improved. Moore was not able at first to improve the larger coins, such as the half dollar, due to technical problems, but the changes came to the half cent in 1831. New dies were executed with the alterations worked out by Kneass in the late 1820s. The most obvious of these for the 1831 half cent were the improved head of Liberty and the beaded border that stands out in comparison to the 1829 coinage.
A mere 2,200 half cents were coined in 1831, almost certainly to test the new dies. Unlike previous half cent coinages, however, these coins seem never to have been officially delivered, and the sole knowledge of them comes from the director’s annual report covering 1831. It is true, however, that Moore had recently changed the accounting procedure for copper coins. In earlier years, the Mint had reported only those coins that had been formally delivered during the calendar year, but now Moore reported actual coinage, regardless of deliveries.
The new record system was an accident waiting to happen, and it did just that. By 1834, the Mint clerks had become thoroughly confused about what copper coins had actually been struck and thus the director’s reports contain errors with respect to just how many pieces were actually minted during a given period. This is easily seen in the official half cent mintage figures of 1833-1836. There is an ongoing controversy over whether any of the business strike ( i.e. non-proof) 1831 half cents were released to the public. In his book on half cents, Roger Cohen listed several that he felt fit this category, but others disagree and the matter is presently in limbo. The rarity of the 1831 half cent was recognized at any early date, and by the late 1850s restrikes were made for collectors. Even the restrikes themselves are rare.
There are two kinds of 1831 half cent restrikes. The first, using the original obverse die but a similar reverse, may have been made as early as the 1840s by Chief Coiner Franklin Peale for collectors. The other set of restrikes was made in the late 1850s and used the wrong style reverse die, one dating from 1840 or later. The large stock of old half cents on hand (dated 1828 and 1829) prompted Mint officials to consider what to do with them. The older pieces were slowly corroding in the damp Philadelphia climate and, when issued to the public, did not always present a good appearance. The old planchets yet on hand from the 1825 Boulton delivery also had problems, though many were still in good condition.
It is not quite clear from available records when the process began, but probably sometime in 1829 or 1830 the Mint started to melt both struck half cents and corroded planchets. By June 1833, this work was complete, and Mint Treasurer William Findlay reported that 233,342 half cents had been melted along with 160,186 planchets. (The data are defective due to copying errors. Additional planchets were possibly melted for which the documents have not yet been found.)
The copper was used as alloy for the gold and silver coinage; there were no domestic sources of copper in the 1830s, and this was a convenient way of obtaining alloy in a timely manner. The melting of struck coins certainly affects the published mintages of the 1828 and 1829 half cents, with the earlier date perhaps bearing the brunt of the attack as they would have been the worstlooking pieces from their longer exposure to the wet climate.