Years
Designer
Christian Gobrecht
Composition
100% copper
Diameter
23 mm
Mass
5.44 g
Thickness
1.8 mm
Edge
Plain
Mints
Philadelphia
Metal
Copper
Design
Mature Liberty with a braided coronet; reverse a tight wreath around HALF CENT. Proof-only years exist in the 1840s.
History
By the 1840s the half cent was already an anachronism. Retail prices had drifted upward, and merchants preferred cents. Many 1840–1849 dates were struck only as proofs for collectors. Large-scale production resumed in 1850, then ended in 1857 when the Coinage Act retired both the half cent and the large cent in favor of a smaller flying-eagle cent. The series is a quiet marker of the shift from handmade copper change to industrial small change.
Key dates
18 issues