Vic's Picks
1c FLOWING HAIR, CHAIN 1793


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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Origin/Country:
Design Description:
Item Description:
Grade: PCGS PR 1 BN
Owner: EZ_E
 
Winning Set: Vic's Picks
Date Added: 12/2/2008
Research: Currently not available

Owner's Description

S-1 AMERI variety. Although poor in grade, this coin is rich in history. It is actually among the very first batch of coins produced by the fledgling US Mint in 1793. Imagine that George Washington still had 6 years to live at this time! R.W. Julian has proposed that Chain cents may have been ceremonially struck on Washington's birthday, Friday, February 22.<br /><br />The S-1 variety was among the first 11,178 coins struck of the 36,103 mintage.<br /><br />Diagnostics are easy (compliments of Conder101) even though AMERI has little visibility. A line drawn south from the "I" in UNITED on the reverse will bisect the joining of two links in the chain. <br /><br />**************************************************************************************<br /><br />FLOWING HAIR CENT, CHAIN REVERSE (1793 ONLY)<br /><br />Walter Breen:<br /><br />Henry Voigt completed the dies sometime in February after vain attempts to engrave the devices. Though officialdom considered him the ablest man for the post here or overseas, the mechanical skills appropriate to a coiner are very different from those of a diesinker. Accordingly, Voigt's designs had to be as simple as possible. We know that Voigt made the dies because of a line in Elias Boudinot's Report to Congress, February 9, 1795:<br /><br /> It was also a considerable time before an engraver could be engaged, during which, the chief coiner was obliged to make the dies himself, and yet the dies are subject to frequent failure by breaking.4 <br /><br />The endless chain device deliberately echoes the reverses of Continental notes of February 1776, the 1776 Continental Currency tin alloy penny, and the 1787 Fugio coppers. This was an unfortunate choice as, to many (then as now), a chain connoted not strength, but slavery. <br /><br />Voigt imparted the chain to both working dies by repeated hand punching of a single link element. This link punch, like the letter and numeral punches, bust have been by the Germantown type founder Jacob Bay, who made punches for all of the denominations until his death in one of the yellow fever epidemics.<br /><br />The cents' plain raised "lip" border, without beading or dentilation, proved unsatisfactory. Evidently it did not strike up well (especially if the blanks were even slightly narrow) and the coins wore down too fast. Many survivors show little or no trace of the raised border though the planchets were apparently given upset rims to accommodate it. This may explain why, less than a month later, the new Wreath design showed obverse and reverse border beading within more noticeably raised rims.<br /><br />Coinage halted for lack of blanks, though more copper was on hand to be melted, rolled, and cut. Over 40,000 additional blanks were ready by March 31, though by this time the Wreath type dies were in production.17<br /><br />Quantitative rarity ratings indicate that slightly more than 1,000 Chain Cents survive of all kinds, or about 2.8% of the original mintage.

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