1793 Chain, America

The AMERICA reverse Chain cent represents the Mint's correction of the truncated AMERI inscription on the earliest dies. With AMERICA spelled out in full, the reverse otherwise retains the same design: a chain of fifteen links encircling ONE CENT and 1/100. The obverse remains Voigt's Flowing Hair Liberty, unchanged from the AMERI dies.

The correction addressed one of the public's complaints but not the more fundamental objection to the chain itself. Newspaper editorialists continued to criticize the design as evocative of bondage rather than unity, regardless of whether AMERICA was spelled in full. The Mint would abandon the chain design entirely within months, replacing it with the Wreath reverse before 1793 ended. The Chain cent, in both AMERI and AMERICA forms, was the first and shortest-lived reverse design in large cent history.

The AMERICA variety is more common than the AMERI, having been struck from a greater number of die pairs over a longer portion of the twelve-day production run. PCGS estimates 625 survive across all grades, roughly triple the AMERI population. The majority are in low circulated condition. Good to Very Good is the typical grade range. A problem-free Fine is a coin that collectors compete for at auction. The finest known, an MS65 Brown, sold for $998,750 at Stack's Bowers in 2013.

The 1793 Chain cent, in either variety, is one of the defining coins of the early American series. It was the first copper coin the new republic put into the hands of its citizens, struck in a year when George Washington was beginning his second term and the French Revolution was entering its most violent phase. The coin is small, crude, and imperfect. It is also irreplaceable as the starting point of American large cent coinage.