1796 Liberty Cap Half Cent, No Pole

The smallest coin of a new Mint

The half cent was the smallest coin the United States ever made, worth one two-hundredth of a dollar. The Philadelphia Mint struck it with a Liberty Cap design from 1793 through 1797: Liberty faces left on the 1793 coins and right from 1794 on, and behind her head a cap rides on a pole, an old emblem of freedom. The reverse carries a wreath around HALF CENT, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the border and the fraction 1/200 at the bottom.

The year 1796 is a landmark at the Mint. It was the first year the Mint produced every authorized denomination, from the half cent up to the ten-dollar eagle. Late in 1795 the Mint also cut the weight of its copper coins: cents fell from 208 to 168 grains and half cents from 104 to 84 grains. The first lighter half cents, struck from January 1796, still carried the 1795 date, often on blanks cut down from spoiled cents and tokens. Coins dated 1796 came later in the year, all on rolled copper stock, according to one cataloger.

The Mint's records list half cent deliveries throughout 1796: 109,000 coins between January and March, thought to be 1795-dated, then 3,350 in April, 1,740 in June and 1,390 on October 24. Standard references give 1,390 as the mintage for 1796. As one leading researcher points out, that is a guess: it is simply the smallest delivery of the year, and nothing shows those coins came from 1796-dated dies. Whatever the number, the 1796 half cent has always been rare.

A missing pole and a cracked die

Two obverse dies were dated 1796, and both were paired with the same reverse. One shows the pole; the other does not. Early coin dies were finished by hand, and the portrait punch that put Liberty's head and cap into the die did not include the pole, which was added separately. On this die it never was. Researchers have long called it a plain engraving error, the work of a forgetful die cutter.

A newer reading ties the omission to the crack. The die split horizontally from rim to rim, probably while it was being made or soon after it went into use, so that it must have looked unusable. The engraver likely did not bother to add the pole to a broken die. The Mint may then have used the cracked, unfinished die anyway as a stopgap until the With Pole die was ready. This is conjecture, because so few coins survive that no one can work out the order in which the dies were used.

Scholars have split on that order. Ebenezer Gilbert, the first to describe every half cent variety in 1916, listed the No Pole second; Roger Cohen in 1971 and Walter Breen in 1983 listed it first. Ronald Manley argued in 1998 that the No Pole came first, while William Eckberg, writing in 2019, concluded it came after. Either way, the cracked die did not last, and most 1796 half cents were struck from the With Pole pairing.

Who designed the type is also unsettled. One reference credits John Smith Gardner; another credits Robert Scot with designing and engraving the right-facing Liberty Cap type.

America in 1796

The country that used these half cents was barely twenty years old. In February 1796 the Jay Treaty with Britain took effect, and in July the United States took possession of Detroit under its terms. Tennessee entered the Union as the sixteenth state on June 1. Surveyors in Ohio named a new settlement Cleveland that July.

In September President George Washington issued his Farewell Address, warning against partisan politics and foreign entanglements. That fall John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson for the presidency, and on November 4 the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. The astronomer, inventor and public official David Rittenhouse died that June.

The finest known, from 1912 to 2021

Collectors have chased the 1796 No Pole since at least the mid-1800s. Montroville Dickeson knew of two 1796 varieties in 1859, and the earliest known auction appearance was in October 1880, from the collection of Ferguson Haines, who had bought his coin two years earlier for $36.

The finest example first appears in June 1912, in the sale of George H. Earle Jr.'s collection, catalogued as a Proof 'of exquisite light olive color, with traces of original red on both sides.' It brought $400. It passed to Col. James W. Ellsworth, then privately to John Work Garrett, then to William Cutler Atwater, whose 1946 sale offered it as 'brilliant semi-proof' for $1,125. The cataloger struggled for restraint: 'this gem is simply too much for me to overcome.' It then joined the collection of Louis E. Eliasberg Sr., who called it in 1956 'the finest known specimen of the rarest half cent.'

In May 1996 the Eliasberg collection was sold at auction in New York, and the No Pole brought $506,000, the first half cent to sell for more than half a million dollars and, at the time, a record for any copper coin. PCGS certified it MS67 Red Brown soon after. It moved privately to D. Brent Pogue in December 2002 and sold at auction in February 2016 for $763,750 to Oliver Jung for his type set. In January 2021, offered from the Jung collection, it sold at auction for $780,000.

The next-best coin has its own long trail, possibly back to an 1895 sale, then to a London sale of 1903, and later the collections of Philip Showers, Willis duPont and the Missouri collector known as Tettenhorst. Graded PCGS MS65 Brown, it sold for $891,250 in the Missouri Cabinet sale in Los Angeles in January 2014. The same sale's 1796 With Pole, PCGS MS65+ Red and Brown, brought $718,750.

How to identify one

A genuine 1796 No Pole is easy to recognize. There is no pole to the cap, and a heavy crack always bisects the obverse. The 1 in the date is a true numeral 1, not the letter I used on the 1795 No Pole dies, which proves a separate die. On the reverse, the wreath has a single leaf at the top of each branch, four berries on the left branch and three on the right, and a leaf point directly below the I in UNITED. The edge is plain.

Survivors are few and mostly poor. Estimates range from about two dozen to about 30; a 2012 census identified 26 different coins. Only four are generally accepted as Mint State: this MS67 Red Brown, the Missouri Cabinet MS65 Brown, an NGC MS63+ Brown from an old English collection, and a PCGS MS63 Brown in the collection of half cent specialist Jim McGuigan, which one 2013 report gives as MS62 Brown. After those four, the best known barely reaches Very Fine, and most of the rest are dark, worn or corroded.

Some high-grade 1796 half cents of both varieties were found in England, where coins were collected in the late 1700s. Reflective early coins like this one were often called Proofs in old catalogs, but there is no record of any American Proofs being made by a special process before the early 1820s, so the finest No Pole is graded as a business strike.

Beware copies. Before 1866 Francis S. Edwards struck copies of the 1796 With Pole half cent from new dies, and even an advanced collector's 'satisfying' No Pole was later found to be counterfeit.

The ultimate half cent

Among circulation-strike half cents, only 1796 and 1831 stand out as true rarities, and many specialists consider the 1831 a Proof-only issue. That leaves the 1796 alone, and the No Pole is the rarer of its two varieties. Only the 1797 Gripped Edge, a variety known mainly to specialists, is rarer among the major half cent varieties.

Its rarity has humbled famous collections. Roger Cohen, who wrote the standard variety book, owned a rough example that turned out to be counterfeit. The noted collector Bill Weber never owned one, and John Whitney Walter made do with a rough coin from Dr. Lee's collection until he found a Choice Mint State example. Writers have called the finest known 'the ultimate example of the ultimate half cent.'

The numbers

Mintage

1,390 commonly cited (the October 24, 1796 delivery); 6,480 half cents were delivered April to October 1796, and the true count of 1796-dated coins is unknown

Known survivors

About 30 (Eckberg); 26 identified (Spurlock, 2012); about 140 half cents of all 1796 varieties

Mint State examples

Four: MS67 RB, MS65 BN, MS63+ BN, MS63 BN

Weight

84-grain standard from late 1795 (5.44 g); one catalog lists 6.74 g, the earlier standard

Diameter

23.5 mm (about 15/16 inch)

Composition

Copper, plain edge

Designer

Credited to John Smith Gardner by one reference and to Robert Scot by another

Timeline

1. 1795

   Near year end the Mint lowers copper weights; half cents drop from 104 to 84 grains.

2. Jan 22, 1796

   First half cent delivery of 1796; the early 1796 deliveries are believed to be 1795-dated coins.

3. Oct 24, 1796

   The Mint delivers 1,390 half cents, the figure later used as the 1796 mintage.

4. 1859

   Montroville Dickeson mentions two varieties of the 1796 half cent.

5. Oct 1880

   Earliest known auction appearance of a 1796 No Pole, from the Ferguson Haines collection.

6. Jun 1912

   The finest known sells for $400 in the George H. Earle Jr. collection, catalogued as a Proof.

7. 1916

   Ebenezer Gilbert publishes the first full description of half cent varieties.

8. 1923

   The finest known moves privately from Ellsworth's collection toward John Work Garrett.

9. Jun 1946

   William Cutler Atwater's collection sale: the coin brings $1,125.

10. 1956

    Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. calls it the finest known specimen of the rarest half cent.

11. May 1996

    Eliasberg sale in New York: $506,000, then a record for any copper coin.

12. Dec 2002

    Sold privately to D. Brent Pogue.

13. Apr 2012

    Michael Spurlock publishes a census of 26 positively identified 1796 No Pole half cents.

14. Jan 26, 2014

    The second-finest, PCGS MS65 Brown, sells for $891,250 in the Missouri Cabinet sale in Los Angeles.

15. Feb 2016

    Pogue collection sale: the finest known brings $763,750 from Oliver Jung.

16. Jan 21, 2021

    Offered from the Jung collection, the PCGS MS67 Red Brown coin sells for $780,000.

The world in 1796

• Feb 29, 1796

  Ratifications of the Jay Treaty between the United States and Britain are exchanged, putting it into effect.

• Jun 1, 1796

  Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state.

• Jun 26, 1796

  Astronomer and instrument maker David Rittenhouse dies.

• Jul 11, 1796

  The United States takes possession of Detroit from Britain under the Jay Treaty.

• Jul 22, 1796

  Surveyors name an area in Ohio Cleveland, after Gen. Moses Cleaveland.

• Sep 1796

  George Washington issues his Farewell Address.

• Nov 4, 1796

  The Treaty of Tripoli is signed.

• Dec 7, 1796

  The Electoral College meets and elects John Adams president.

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, 1796 Liberty Cap Half Cent, No Pole is number 31 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 (34 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The pole was left off because it was never part of the portrait punch; it had to be added to each die by hand, and on this cracked die no one did.
• The finest known sold for $400 in 1912 and $780,000 in 2021, and was catalogued as a Proof before modern grading called it a business strike.
• In 1996 this half cent became the first ever to sell for more than half a million dollars, then a record for any copper coin.
• The 1,390 mintage printed in standard references is just the smallest half cent delivery of 1796, with no proof those coins bore that date.
• The author of the standard half cent variety book owned a 1796 No Pole that later proved to be counterfeit.
• Every known 1796 No Pole shows the same heavy crack across Liberty's portrait.