doesnt look like a job well done. is the area around the '1' butchered, or just cleaner then the rest? would have een a much nicer coin left alone IMO
This thread caught my eye because I knew there were no large cents in 1815... the only year in US history we didn't make 1c coins. Any trivia historians know WHY we didn't ? (I don't...) What was different about that year ?
900fine: Why didn't we? Easy a little thing called the War of 1812. Which last quite a bit longer. The government listed copper on the banned list from England, so the mint could not issue any copper coins, and they could not refine the native ore, they did not have the facilities to do it properly. So, no copper, no coins. By the end of 1814 they had run out of the last shipment from (I believe) Bolton in England.
Thanks ! That explains why we were able to mint 'em in 1812, 1813, and 1814. Interesting stuff. :thumb: Looks like our supply of silver and gold lasted a little longer. Does this "War of 1812" idea also explain the lapse of silver and gold coinage starting in 1816 ?
No, the gold & silver were from domestic production. The decrease in production was (I believe) becasue of the simple fact that there was more gold & silver in the coins than the face value. Congress in their infinite wisdom, took forever to change the amount of silver & gold in the coins. Before that the cons were struck and immediately exported for profit.
Ya know... whenever I hear the terms "Congress" and "infinite wisdom" in the same sentence... ... I figure there's some sarcasm in their somewhere !
No the decrease in silver and gold production was because of a fire at the mint in early 1816 which destroyed the rolling mill used to to roll out the gold and silver ingots into strip. It took a long time to rebuild and the rolling mill was very difficut to replace. The rollers were pretty much beyond American technology of the day to forge and had to be imported. (The mint had tried domesticly produced rollers in the past but they had not been satifactory. That was one reason why they prefered to import the copper in planchet form already ready for striking rather than use the rolling mill to produce their own. They saved the rollers for the softer silver and gold.) The weight of the gold coins were not changed until 1834, silver wasn't altered until 1853, but the fineness was changed in 1837.
It also explains why good examples of Classic Head large cents are so hard to find. The copper that was used tended to be inferior in quality. Hence the plethora of porous coins. I could be mistaken but I believe I have read that in the past.
As an aside, the source of copper during this period is also the reason why virtually all classic head large cents have crappy planchets -- most had corrosion/porosity issues when struck caused by their transport in the holds of ships from England. After large cent production resumed in 1816, the quality of coins quickly got better....Mike p.s. If it existed, which of the following would the 1815 large cent look like? Hmmmmmmmm......
Well considering the DID strike 1816 large cents in December of 1815, I'd say they look like the second one. If there hadn't been the copper shortage though, and they had made 1815 cents through the year they would have probably have been classic heads because I don't believe Scot took up work on the 1816 cent design until later in 1815.
