Braided Hair Half Cents (1840–1857)

A Coin Designed for Presentation Sets, Not Pockets

By 1840 the Philadelphia Mint still held substantial stocks of Classic Head half cents struck in the 1830s and had no pressing reason to produce more coins for commerce. The denomination had not circulated in meaningful quantities since the final Classic Head issues. Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson nonetheless directed Christian Gobrecht to prepare new half cent dies, not for circulation but for inclusion in the Proof sets the Mint presented to visiting dignitaries and government officials. Patterson also instructed Gobrecht to complete working hubs from which dies could be produced later if demand ever justified a return to regular coinage. The hubs meant that when demand returned in 1849, the Mint could make circulation dies for the half cent without a new design.¹

Gobrecht came to the assignment with genuine credentials. He had arrived at the Mint around 1823 in a supporting role, risen to Second Engraver under William Kneass in 1835, and had by then produced some of the most accomplished engraving in the institution's history. The Gobrecht dollar carried his name. The Liberty Seated motif that would define American silver coinage for decades was his. When Kneass died in office in 1840 (he had been largely incapacitated since a stroke in 1835), Gobrecht was the logical successor, and his appointment as Chief Engraver arrived in the same year as his half cent commission.² He died in 1844, four years into the job, leaving behind a design that would outlast him by thirteen years.

Better Tools, Better Training, a Better Portrait

The Braided Hair obverse shows Liberty facing left, hair gathered into a tight bun secured by two beaded cords, with curling locks falling over her ear and down the back of her neck. A plain coronet across her forehead carries LIBERTY in raised letters. Thirteen stars ring the interior, date below the bust. The portrait is younger and more classically refined than Reich's Classic Head, which had served the denomination for roughly twenty-seven years (1809–1836), and the difference is noticeable even in worn examples. Gobrecht had the advantage of working with better tools, better training, and a cleaner neoclassical vocabulary than most of his predecessors at the Mint.

The reverse kept the established format: wreath enclosing HALF CENT at center, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the border, bow at the bottom, plain edge. The diameter dropped slightly from 23.5 to 23 millimeters. Weight held at 5.44 grams. No denomination changes, no composition changes.

Nine Years with No Business Strikes

From 1840 through 1848, the Mint struck Braided Hair half cents exclusively as Proofs. The Treasury drew on stored Classic Head pieces for whatever commerce required, and the new Gobrecht design existed only as a presentation coin for officials and visiting dignitaries. The original Proofs from these nine years are among the rarest objects in all of American copper coinage. For most dates in this span, fewer than 75 examples survive. For several, the count falls below a dozen. These dates are rare in every grade, worn examples included. Breen and Cohen both publish population figures for these dates, new attributions still surface, and a buyer should check each coin against both books.³

In 1849 the stored Classic Head supply was finally exhausted and the Mint struck Braided Hair half cents for circulation for the first time. Two varieties exist for that year. The Large Date pieces were struck for commerce and survive in reasonable numbers across circulated grades; the Small Date was produced only as a Proof and belongs with the preceding decade's issues in terms of rarity. The 1849 Large Date is the first business strike of the type, and despite a mintage below 40,000 it is not an expensive coin in the grades typically encountered. It circulated very little.

Stopped, Restarted, Stopped Again

Regular production ran through 1850 and 1851. In 1852 circulation coinage stopped again: sufficient 1851-dated pieces remained on hand and demand had once more fallen short of existing supply. The 1852 date exists only as Proofs, nearly all of them restrikes; Q. David Bowers estimates 100 to 125 are known, and only a handful of originals with the large-berries reverse have been confirmed. Circulation resumed in 1853 and continued through the final issue of 1857.

The business strike dates from 1853 through 1857 share a survival pattern different from earlier half cent series. Because these coins were never heavily used in commerce, significant wear is unusual. Most examples encountered grade Very Fine through About Uncirculated. Uncirculated pieces of the later dates are not rare in relative terms, though original surface color is. The 1853 date, whose 129,694 pieces rank second only to the 1851 in the circulation run, appears to be unknown in fully brilliant Uncirculated condition with original copper color. Most Mint State 1853 pieces are brown. The 1855 is easier to find in high grade: Charles French, a dealer in Troy, New York, held a bag of about 500 Uncirculated 1855 half cents and sold them off gradually into the 1960s.⁴ That kind of single-source preservation is common enough in early American copper to be a recurring theme; it is the mechanism behind the 1800 and 1806 Draped Bust hoards and several others. The French coins account for much of the supply of choice red 1855 half cents still on the market.

Snowden, Linderman, and the Restrike Problem

The diagnostic for separating original Proofs from restrikes is specific and learnable. Original Proofs carry large berries in the reverse wreath. Restrikes carry small berries, and within that category two sub-varieties exist: a First Restrike identifiable by recutting on the letters N and T in CENT, and a Second Restrike distinguished by diagonal die striations above the letters RICA in AMERICA.⁵ Breen documented these die details exhaustively, and a buyer should learn them before purchase.

The restrike operation followed the same pattern established with the Classic Head late dates. Beginning in the late 1850s, Mint personnel with access to old dies produced unauthorized strikings of the Proof-only 1840s dates and the 1852, selling them privately into a market that was hungry for rare early coins. Mint Director James Ross Snowden discovered the operation and had the relevant dies sealed in a Mint vault in July 1860. That was not the end of it. Seven years later, in 1867, Director Henry R. Linderman opened the sealed box and authorized a further small production before the dies were finally destroyed.⁶

February 21, 1857

The Coinage Act of 1857 discontinued the half cent and the large cent simultaneously, authorized the new small copper-nickel cent, and demonetized circulating foreign coins. The half cent's elimination reflected arithmetic that had been unfavorable for years: the cost of producing a copper coin worth half a cent had been rising toward and past its face value as copper prices increased, and the logistical argument for the denomination, that it provided exact change for transactions involving Spanish reales at 12.5 cents each, dissolved when those same foreign coins were demonetized by the same legislation.

The 1857 saw 35,180 half cents struck before the act passed. Mint Director Snowden subsequently ordered remaining stocks of half cents melted, a decision that reduced the available supply of several dates in ways that are difficult to quantify because no complete inventory of what was destroyed survives.⁷ A proposal to revive the denomination surfaced in 1912, when Ohio Representative William A. Ashbrook pressed a House bill (H.R. 23570) for new half cent and three-cent pieces. The bill had the Mint director's approval and passed the House, then died in the Senate. The 1857 Braided Hair remains the final half cent.

Building the Set

The series divides into two collecting problems that share almost nothing except the same obverse portrait. The circulation issues from 1849 through 1857, minus the Proof-only 1852, are accessible to a broad range of collectors. Well-preserved examples of the common dates from the mid-1850s are findable at moderate prices, and assembling a complete date set of the business strikes is a realistic goal for a patient collector working within a reasonable budget. Choice original-surface pieces in red or red-brown command premiums, but problem-free brown examples are available.

The Proof dates from 1840 through 1848, and 1852, are a different matter entirely. These are genuinely rare coins at every grade level, the distinction between originals and restrikes requires specific die-diagnostic knowledge to navigate, and pedigree matters in a way it does not for the circulation issues. A collector working in this area without the Breen encyclopedia and Cohen's reference is operating without the information needed to know what they are buying. The finest pieces across all Proof dates are priced among the significant rarities of early American copper, and competition for them at major auctions is real. If you are approaching this part of the series for the first time, buy one well-pedigreed original in a grade you can afford and study it before committing to more.