1797 Draped Bust Cents 1796-1807 MS64BN

History

Most Uncirculated 1797 large cents trace to the Nichols Find, a group believed to have come from a bag of roughly 1,000 cents purchased from the Mint in December 1797 by Senator Benjamin Goodhue of Salem, Massachusetts, reportedly as partial pay for his government service. Goodhue passed the coins to his daughters, and the family circulated them locally in the Salem area over the following decades. By the late 1850s the coins had drawn the attention of the young American numismatic community, and the group took its name from David Nichols. The Goodhue purchase is a traditional account carried in auction cataloguing rather than a recorded Mint transaction, but the find remains the standard explanation for why Mint State survivors of this date exist in any number.

Details

Robert Scot is credited with both obverse and reverse of the type. The coin was struck in copper on a plain edge planchet at the Philadelphia Mint, with no mint mark, to a weight standard of 10.89 grams; published diameters for 1797 cents range from 28 to 29 millimeters. Total 1797 cent coinage across all die pairings was 897,510 pieces, and no die-variety-level mintage figure exists for S-123 or for any other Sheldon number in the year. S-123 belongs to the Reverse of 1797, Stems to Wreath major type, and is distinct from the Reverse of 1795 pairings that include the separate Gripped Edge variety.

Features

The obverse carries a draped bust of Liberty facing right, LIBERTY above and the date 1797 below, with the ribbon that ties her hair plainly visible at the back of the head. On the reverse a wreath encloses ONE CENT, its base bound by a ribbon tied in a bow, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the border and the fractional denomination 1/100 beneath. No motto appears on either side, as neither E PLURIBUS UNUM nor IN GOD WE TRUST was used on the large cent series. The obverse die is identified by an injury in the form of a cut on Liberty's cheek immediately below the eye, damage possibly caused by the edge of another die, and it appears on every example of the variety.

Notable facts

• S-123 is cross-referenced as Breen-12.
• Rarity ratings assigned to the variety in auction cataloguing run from R-4 to R-4 minus, placing the surviving population at roughly 76 to 200 pieces.
• NGC assigns Sheldon numbers to all cents dated 1796 through 1807.
• William C. Noyes, United States Large Cents 1795-1797 (Volume 2, 2006), illustrates all known die states and lists the top 12 condition census pieces for each of the 91 Sheldon varieties of the period.
• One MS-63 BN example certified by PCGS with CAC approval was described as having medium brown toning over hard, satiny surfaces from a well centered impression.