Years
Designer
Henry Voigt
Composition
100% copper
Diameter
26.5 mm
Mass
13.48 g
Thickness
2.2 mm
Edge
Vine and bars, or lettered
Mints
Philadelphia
Metal
Copper
Design
Liberty facing right with wild flowing hair. Reverse of the Chain cent shows a fifteen-link chain; the Wreath cent replaced it after public complaint that the chain looked like bondage.
History
The 1793 Chain cent is the first circulating coin struck in the United States Mint. Only about 36,000 were made before the reverse was recut as a wreath. Newspapers mocked Liberty as looking frightened and the chain as a bad omen for a republic that had just thrown off Britain. Surviving Chain cents are among the most studied objects in American coinage — every die marriage is cataloged. They circulated in a cash-poor economy that still used Spanish milled dollars, state coppers, and private tokens.
Key dates
stopper
Varieties
1793-P · Chain AMERI.
design · stopper
1793-P · Wreath reverse
design · key
1 issues