1793 Liberty Cap Cent

The third cent of 1793

The United States Mint began regular coinage in Philadelphia in 1793, and its first copper cents did not go over well. The Chain cent received harsh reviews, and the Wreath cent that replaced it also lasted less than a year. Most Americans had not yet seen any federal coins and still thought in terms of Spanish milled dollars, state coppers and private tokens. The Mint needed a cent people would accept.

The third attempt was the Liberty Cap. Its obverse shows Liberty facing right, her hair flowing loose, with a pole behind her topped by a soft Phrygian cap, the cap worn in ancient times by freed slaves as a sign of liberty. The reverse has a sparse laurel wreath with single berries on individual stems around ONE CENT. The coins were in higher relief than later cents, and their edges carried the lettered inscription ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR, ending in a leaf.

The design proved more durable than its predecessors. Modified, it continued into 1796, when it gave way to the Draped Bust cent. The 1793 version, with Wright's original high-relief portrait, is far scarcer than the later years.

Joseph Wright, painter of the Washingtons

Joseph Wright was a New Jersey native and portraitist whose best-known works were his 1783 paintings of George and Martha Washington. In August 1793 he began working at the Mint as an engraver and die-sinker under Mint Director David Rittenhouse, the scientist.

For his model Wright turned to the Libertas Americana medal of 1783 by the French medalist Augustin Dupré. That medal, a private project of Benjamin Franklin, commemorated the American victories at Saratoga and Yorktown and was given to dignitaries on both sides of the Atlantic. It showed a youthful Liberty facing left with wind-blown hair and a cap on a pole. Wright turned her to the right and swapped the medal's helmet-like cap for the soft Phrygian cap.

Wright never saw his cents struck. Yellow fever reached Philadelphia that summer and killed him before the coins were delivered. The design continued into early 1794 and was then modified, in much lower relief, by engraver Robert Scot.

Struck in a city of fever

The yellow fever epidemic began in Philadelphia on August 1, 1793. By the time it ended in November, about 5,000 people had died. The Mint pressed on through the worst of it. The entire 1793 Liberty Cap mintage of 11,056 cents was delivered on September 18. Within hours the Mint shut down so its staff could leave the city, and it did not reopen until November 12. No more cents were made that year.

That same September 18, President Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Earlier in the year he had begun his second term, and in April he had issued the Neutrality Proclamation. In October, Eli Whitney applied for his cotton gin patent.

Most survivors are in low grades and often corroded, damaged, cleaned or weakly struck. A leading grading service estimates 450 survive in all grades, with only two having legitimate claims to Mint State and none with original red or red-brown color.

Telling a Sheldon-13

Large cents are collected by die variety, using the numbering William H. Sheldon set out in Early American Cents in 1949, revised in 1958 as Penny Whimsy. Sheldon listed four Liberty Cap varieties for 1793. Six die pairings are known today, struck from a handful of obverse dies and only two reverses.

Sheldon-13 is the most available of them. A collector's guide describes it as the most frequently encountered, and one estimate puts its mintage at 7,000 to 7,200 pieces. A poll of Early American Coppers club members voted it the most beautiful of all the 1793 varieties. On the obverse, two border beads sit over the I in LIBERTY and the L almost touches the beaded border. Sheldon-12 shares that obverse. Sheldon-13 pairs it with a reverse on which the leaf below ME in AMERICA runs parallel to the bases of those letters, with a triple leaf at OF.

The coin behind this entry is an early die state, struck before a bulge developed in the reverse die between the NT of UNITED. Its catalog describes an unusually good strike for the issue: both sides are slightly off center, but the beaded borders are complete all around, with only a little softness at the highest point of Liberty's portrait and at ONE and CENT on the reverse.

A cent with 130 years of owners

One published census traces this coin back to Henry Whiteley, who inherited it from his grandparents. It went to Benjamin H. Collins on April 14, 1896, to Dr. Thomas Hall in 1909 and to collector Virgil M. Brand in 1934. It went to Armin Brand in 1941 and to B.G. Johnson in St. Louis in 1944. It sold in 1947 for $400 from the Frederic W. Geiss collection. In the 1980s it passed through the collection of Herman Halpern and the hands of Denis W. Loring, who acquired it a second time in 2000, before it joined the copper collection of Jon Alan Boka.

On September 8, 2011, graded PCGS AU53, it sold at auction in Long Beach, California, for $253,000. It was one of about 1,600 lots of U.S. and colonial coins offered alongside a Long Beach coin show, and the U.S. coins in that sale brought $8.52 million. In January 2013 the same coin, still AU53 and now with a CAC sticker, sold at auction for $282,000.

From there the coin most likely moved up a grade. One collector's guide lists this early pedigree under two certification numbers. The first ends with the 2011 sale. The second runs through the same 2011 lot and the same January 2013 lot, then the Cardinal Collection and the D. Brent Pogue collection, where the coin was graded AU55 and sold for $376,000 on March 31, 2017, then for $270,250 that August with a CAC sticker. That points to one coin regraded after 2013, though no source says so outright.

The cornerstone of early copper

No U.S. coins have drawn more devoted study than the large cents of this type. The first treatise on the 1793 cents, by Sylvester S. Crosby and J.N.T. Levick, appeared in 1869. Today the Early American Coppers club is among the most dedicated groups of specialists in the hobby. William Sheldon's grading scale, laid out in Penny Whimsy, was built on the 1794 Liberty Cap cents that followed.

The best 1793 Liberty Caps carry long pedigrees and high prices. The finest known, a PCGS MS64+ brown once owned by Thomas Cleneay, William Woodin and Louis Eliasberg, sold for $319,000 in May 1996. In March 2017 a Sheldon-13 graded AU58, traced back to Joseph J. Mickley's collection before 1867, set the variety's record at $940,000. Prices have been climbing for a long time: an example later identified as a Sheldon-13 appeared in a coin sale on November 1, 1858, and brought $7.25, which was considered a very high price at the time.

The numbers

Mintage

11,056 (all 1793 Liberty Cap cents); Sheldon-13 estimated at 7,000-7,200

Known survivors

About 450 in all grades (grading-service estimate); only two with legitimate Mint State claims

Weight

13.48 grams

Diameter

28.5 mm

Composition

Copper

Edge

Lettered: ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR

Designer

Joseph Wright (attributed), after Augustin Dupré's Libertas Americana medal

Variety

Sheldon-13, Breen-20; rated rarity 3 or low rarity 4 (sources differ)

Mint

Philadelphia

Timeline

1. 1783

   Augustin Dupré's Libertas Americana medal, the model for the design, is issued; Joseph Wright paints George and Martha Washington.

2. Aug 1793

   Joseph Wright begins work at the Mint as engraver and die-sinker under David Rittenhouse.

3. Aug 1, 1793

   The yellow fever epidemic begins in Philadelphia.

4. 1793

   Wright dies of yellow fever before any of his cents are delivered.

5. Sep 18, 1793

   The entire mintage of 11,056 Liberty Cap cents is delivered; the Mint closes within hours.

6. Nov 12, 1793

   The Mint reopens; no more cents are struck that year.

7. 1794

   Robert Scot modifies the Liberty Cap design in lower relief.

8. Nov 1, 1858

   A Liberty Cap cent later attributed as Sheldon-13 brings $7.25 at a coin sale in 1858.

9. 1869

   Crosby and Levick publish the first treatise on the 1793 cents.

10. Apr 14, 1896

    Benjamin H. Collins acquires the coin behind this entry from Henry Whiteley.

11. 1934

    Virgil M. Brand acquires the coin.

12. Feb 1947

    The coin sells for $400 in the Frederic W. Geiss collection sale.

13. 1949

    William H. Sheldon publishes Early American Cents, numbering the varieties.

14. Mar 1988

    The coin is sold from the Herman Halpern collection.

15. May 20, 1996

    The finest known 1793 Liberty Cap, the Eliasberg coin, sells for $319,000.

16. Sep 8, 2011

    The coin behind this entry, PCGS AU53, sells for $253,000 in Long Beach, California.

17. Jan 2013

    The same coin, now with a CAC sticker, sells for $282,000.

18. Mar 31, 2017

    A Sheldon-13 graded AU58 sets the variety's record at $940,000.

The world in 1793

• Jan 9, 1793

  Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes the first balloon flight in the Western Hemisphere, from Philadelphia to New Jersey.

• Feb 12, 1793

  Congress passes the first federal Fugitive Slave Act.

• Mar 4, 1793

  George Washington and John Adams are sworn in for a second term in Philadelphia.

• Apr 22, 1793

  Washington issues the Neutrality Proclamation.

• Aug 1, 1793

  The yellow fever epidemic begins in Philadelphia; about 5,000 people die.

• Sep 18, 1793

  Washington lays the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.

• Oct 28, 1793

  Eli Whitney applies for a patent on his cotton gin.

• Dec 9, 1793

  Noah Webster launches the American Minerva, New York City's first daily newspaper.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1793 Liberty Cap Cent is number 54 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (25 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• All 11,056 Liberty Cap cents of 1793 were delivered on a single day, September 18, the same day George Washington laid the Capitol's cornerstone.
• Within hours of that delivery the Mint shut down to escape yellow fever and stayed closed until November 12.
• The designer, Joseph Wright, is better known for his 1783 portraits of George and Martha Washington.
• The coin's edge tells you its value: ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR.
• The coin behind this entry sold for $400 in 1947 and for $253,000 in 2011.
• A poll of large-cent specialists voted Sheldon-13 the most beautiful variety of 1793.
• In 1858 a Liberty Cap cent brought $7.25 at auction, then considered a very high price.