Draped Bust Coins

History

The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792 set the terms both types were struck under. Section 9 authorized the eagle at ten dollars, containing 247.5 grains of pure gold or 270 grains of standard gold, while Section 10 required an impression emblematic of liberty with the word LIBERTY and the year on one side, an eagle and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA on the reverse of gold and silver coins, and on copper coins an inscription expressing the denomination instead. That statutory split is why the Draped Bust cent carries a wreath and a value legend where the eagle carries a bird. The design first appeared on the silver dollar in the fall of 1795, replacing Robert Scot's Flowing Hair, and spread the following year to the cent, half dime, dime, quarter and half dollar, with the half cent adopting it from 1800 to 1808. Attribution has long gone to a Gilbert Stuart painting worked up by Scot, and R.W. Julian described a chain in which Stuart supplied the designs, John Eckstein turned them into plaster models, and Scot cut dies from those models at what Julian believed was Washington's prompting, though other archival work argues Stuart had no role at all and credits Scot and Eckstein alone. On the cent the design arrived in mid-1796 as a replacement for the Liberty Cap, paired at first with three different reverses: the Reverse of 1794, the Reverse of 1795, and a new reverse that stayed in use through 1807.

Details

Robert Scot cut the dies for both types, and Philadelphia was the only mint in operation, so no mint marks appear on either. The eagle was struck in an alloy of 91.7% gold and 8.3% copper, weighing 17.50 grams at 33.00 millimeters with a reeded edge, and the 1795 issue accounts for 5,083 pieces. Gold coinage under the design ran from 1795 to 1804; the cent series ran from 1796 to 1807. Cent edges were not uniform across the run, and 1797 exists with both gripped and plain edges.

Features

The obverse of both types shows a draped bust of Liberty facing right with LIBERTY above and the date below, following the language of Section 10. The eagle reverse began with a small eagle, and the two major 1795 varieties are separated by the count of leaves in the palm branch, 13 Leaves and 9 Leaves, with further die marriages catalogued under the Bass-Dannreuther system; four BD numbers are recorded for the 13 Leaves variety alone. The cent reverse carries a wreath and the value in place of an eagle. Cent collectors work through a long variety list: LIHERTY and a stemless reverse in 1796, normal and stemless reverses in 1797, the 8 over 7 overdate of 1798 along with a mid-year modification to Liberty's hair, 1799/8, both 1800/1798 and 1800 80 over 79, and stemless wreath and 1/000 fraction pieces in 1802. The 1801 Three Errors reverse combines a 1/000 fraction, a one-stem wreath and a defective U in UNITED, while a separate 1801 die shows the first 0 of that fraction corrected to a 1; 1803 offers a stemless reverse, a corrected fraction, and Large and Small date paired with Large and Small fraction.

Notable facts

• The 1799 cent is the rarest date of the series, and it exists both as a normal date and as 1799/8.
• A 1795 eagle of the 13 Leaves variety graded MS64+ brought $822,500 on March 21, 2019, the auction record tracked for that date and variety.
• The Garrett specimen of the 1795 13 Leaves eagle later passed through the D. Brent Pogue Collection.
• Cent die varieties are attributed in the market by Sheldon numbers, the standard reference framework for early copper.
• The Draped Bust half cent, struck from 1800 to 1808, outlasted every other denomination that carried the design.
• Modern strike designations such as full bands, full bell lines and full steps belong to twentieth century types and are never applied to Draped Bust coinage.