Flowing Hair Large Cents (1793)

Three Designs in One Year

The Philadelphia Mint struck its first large cent on February 27, 1793. By the end of that same year it had abandoned two designs, introduced a third, and produced six distinct varieties across two types, all under the pressure of public criticism, planchet shortages, and the competing demands of a new institution still working out its basic procedures. No other year in American coinage history compressed so much design history into so short a span.

Henry Voigt, the Mint's Chief Coiner, cut the dies for the first type. His credentials for the work were genuinely mixed: a skilled machinist and watchmaker, thorough in his understanding of mechanical systems, but portrait engraving at the standard the public expected was a different discipline. The Libertas Americana medal, struck in Paris at Benjamin Franklin's direction to commemorate American victories in the Revolution, served as the conceptual source for Liberty's portrait on these coins, as it had for the half cent struck the same year.¹ What Voigt produced from that source was serviceable under a deadline and recognizably inadequate under scrutiny.

Two Weeks, a Chain, and a Public Objection

The Chain cent obverse shows Liberty facing right, hair in loose strands beneath LIBERTY, date below. The reverse presents fifteen interlocking links encircling ONE CENT and the fraction 1/100. The chain referenced the fifteen states then in the Union, a symbol borrowed from the Fugio cent of 1787 and Continental currency before it. The public did not read it as a symbol of national unity. Philadelphia newspapers described Liberty as appearing "in a fright," and one paper called it an ill omen for liberty to appear in chains.² Whether the criticism was widely held or amplified by a few vocal writers, the Mint took it seriously enough to act immediately.

Production ran from late February through mid-March, when planchet supplies ran out. Total output across all Chain cent varieties was approximately 36,103 coins. Three varieties are recognized by elements of the reverse inscription. The most common spells AMERICA in full with no additional punctuation. A second adds periods after LIBERTY and the date on the obverse: the Periods variety, rarest of the three by survivor count, with perhaps 200 examples known across all grades. A Periods cent graded Mint State 65 Brown by PCGS set the current auction record for any American cent when it realized $2,350,000 at Heritage's January 2015 FUN Convention sale.³ The third variety carries AMERI. rather than the full spelling, a consequence of insufficient die space on the first reverse die prepared. Estimated survivors for the AMERI. variety number around 300, placing it in the second tier of rarity among the three. All three varieties were produced and exhausted within that two-week window.

What Eckfeldt Built to Replace It

Mint Director David Rittenhouse moved without delay. He directed Adam Eckfeldt, the Mint's die sinker, to prepare a new reverse. The chain disappeared. In its place came an elongated wreath enclosing ONE CENT, with 1/100 below and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the border. The obverse Liberty portrait was carried over from the Chain cent but modified: more volume and definition in the hair, a steadier upward gaze. Production began in early April and ran through mid-July, yielding approximately 63,353 Wreath cents, nearly twice the Chain cent output.

The wreath itself has generated sustained discussion. The elongated leaves are consistent with laurel, but the three-lobed trefoil leaves visible above the central bow and the small berries on thin stems have prompted suggestions of cotton, maple, or some decorative composite that does not correspond to any single plant. Rittenhouse was a scientist of wide-ranging interests and probably had an ornamental design in mind rather than a botanical one. The question has never been definitively settled, and I suspect it never will be; the Mint's records from this period are incomplete, and Rittenhouse left no written description of what he intended.⁴

Three Wreath cent varieties are catalogued by edge treatment. The Lettered Edge variety carries ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR around the coin's edge, stating the denomination's relationship to the dollar in terms a public still accustomed to Spanish reales could parse. The Vine and Bars edge substitutes an ornamental pattern of vine segments and horizontal bars. At least one die pairing, Sheldon-11, is recorded with all three known edge treatments, which reflects the somewhat improvised quality of the production process rather than any deliberate design decision. Eckfeldt's dies broke frequently during this run, a result of incomplete mastery of the hardening process, and working through multiple edge configurations on a single die pairing was the kind of thing that happened when the institution was still learning.⁵

Four Coins, No Explanation: The Strawberry Leaf

Among the six recognized 1793 Flowing Hair varieties, one stands entirely apart. The Strawberry Leaf cent is a Wreath cent sub-type identified by a distinctive cluster of three-lobed leaves beneath Liberty's bust, replacing the small sprig that appears on every other Wreath cent. The name has been in use since the nineteenth century, when collector Richard Winsor first described the variety, though the plant depicted does not match actual strawberry leaves precisely; cotton, maple, and several others have been proposed without anything approaching consensus.⁶

Only four examples are known, all in low grades. Why the unusual leaf cluster appears on this small group of coins and nowhere else in the entire 1793 cent production has never been satisfactorily explained. Whether it represents an experimental die element, a substitute punch used when the standard was unavailable, or something else entirely is not recorded in any surviving Mint document. Four coins, no explanation. The Strawberry Leaf's extreme rarity and unresolved origins have made it one of the most discussed objects in the study of early American copper. An example in any condition represents a significant acquisition; the question of what it is remains genuinely open.

Wright and the End of the Flowing Hair Type

The Wreath cent was still in production when Rittenhouse hired Joseph Wright, a New Jersey portraitist whose work included paintings of George and Martha Washington. Wright was assigned the task of preparing new device punches for the cent. His design kept Liberty in right-facing profile but smoothed and shortened the hair, added a Phrygian cap on a pole, and produced a portrait noticeably more controlled than Voigt's: the hair has actual weight and direction rather than the agitated tangle of the Chain cent, and the face reads as a person rather than a type. That coin, the Liberty Cap cent, began production in the fall of 1793 and ended the Wreath cent's run.⁷ Wright died of yellow fever in September 1793, the same epidemic that killed his wife, having remade the cent in a matter of months. What he might have accomplished given more time is visible in the Liberty Cap coins he left behind.

Building the Set

The six varieties divide into rough tiers of accessibility, and the gaps between tiers are significant. The Wreath cent in Lettered Edge and Vine and Bars configurations appears regularly at auction across a range of circulated grades. A collector willing to accept significant wear can acquire an honest example without extraordinary difficulty, though even low-grade pieces carry prices that reflect historical significance rather than common availability. The Chain cent in its standard AMERICA spelling is the next step up: scarcer, priced accordingly, but within reach for a serious collector with patience.

The Periods and AMERI. Chain cent varieties require deliberate pursuit. The Strawberry Leaf, with four known examples all in low grades, is outside practical collecting for most people. That is not a criticism of those who pursue it; it is a statement about what the market for a four-coin variety looks like.

Surface quality matters throughout this series more than the grade alone would suggest. Planchet problems, edge damage, and cleaning are common, and the variable nature of the planchets makes strike assessment genuinely difficult on pieces that appear worn but may reflect imperfect original striking rather than post-mint friction. Problem-free examples with original surfaces command clear premiums and are worth waiting for. The Sheldon reference provides the attribution framework; Bowers's Whitman guide provides the market context. Both are worth reading before committing significant money to any piece in this series.