Lot 1503
1793 Flowing Hair Cent. Chain reverse, "AMERICA" in legend. NGC graded Sheldon-2. VF-20 Brown. Black, porus surfaces as though it were buried for many years, and yet, the important features such as LIBERTY, the date, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, the denomination and chain all show with good detail. There are a few old marks noted. Important type coin. The S-2 variety has AMERICA spelled in its entirety, with the digits of the date widely spaced, the 1 underneath the lowest hair curl.
Designs for this piece are by Henry Voight. Only 36,103 were minted. Concerning the desirable Chain Cents of 1793, R.W. Julian, in an article about the large cent series, describes the earliest pieces made: "The first reverse die had the word "AMERI" instead of "AMERICA" because it was thought more important to have a balanced reverse legend than to have the name spelled out. The idea was quickly dropped because officials realized that the name of the country should not be abbreviated.
"That this first reverse die (with AMERI.) was used at all shows the slowness with which dies were executed by Voight. Even though the decision was made to use the full name, the first die was not thrown out as normally would have been the case. This indicates that the delay in coinage until late February was primarily due to the difficulty in handling the copper.
"The first cents, as all coins struck at the Mint through the early days of 1795, were hand-fed into the press by a young boy; there was as yet no automatic feeding device triggered by the operation of the screw press. Only one press was used for the cent coinage in 1793, but by early in 1794 two presses were occasionally in operation at the same time."
Estimated Value $20,000 - 25,000.
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