1807 1/2C, BN XF45BN Certification #18490258, PCGS #1104

Charles Morgan

Introduced in 1800, The Draped Bust was the second design type for the half cent, a denomination that was intended to be an important "coin for the everyman," aiding in small transactions. However, the half cent never truly resonated with the public. Its fate was sealed by economic forces: due to rising copper prices and the coin's diminishing spending power, the U.S. Congress formally abolished the half cent via the Coinage Act of February 21, 1857.

A Close Look at the 1807 Draped Bust Half Cent

The 1807 Draped Bust Half Cent (#1104) is one of the more common issues within its design type, though its precise mintage remains a long-standing subject of debate among numismatists. The coin was produced using a single die pair, designated Cohen-1 or Eckberg 1-A (#35203) in standard references. This pair combined a new 1807 obverse die with the reverse C die carried over from the 1806 issue (#1099). A distinctive identifying feature of this reverse is a spike protruding from the right side of the fraction bar.

Mintage Controversy

The officially cited mintage figure for the 1807 half cent is 476,000. However, this figure is highly contested because there is only one known die pair for the issue, and early American dies were not expected to last long enough to strike that many coins.

• Walter Breen, in his Complete Encyclopedia, surmised that the actual mintage was a fraction of the official number, suggesting only 38,000+ were struck.
• Early American Coppers (EAC) expert Bill Eckberg also disputes the official figure. In his 2019 reference, The Half Cent, 1793-1857: The Story of America’s Greatest Little Coin, Eckberg attributes 199,000 of the reported 476,000 to the preceding Large 6 1806 Draped Bust Half Cent.
• This revision leaves an estimated mintage of 356,000 for the 1807-dated half cents, which would have been delivered from August 4, 1807, to early April 1808.

United States Mint records complicate the matter further, officially reporting four deliveries totaling 476,000 pieces across a seven-month period. The surviving population suggests that Breen’s number may be too conservative, but the true mintage remains unknown.

The Quality of the 1807 Draped Bust Half Cents as Struck

The quality of this issue largely depended on the condition of the planchet and the dies. All half cents dated 1807, as with all other Draped Bust half cents, were struck on high-quality blank planchets imported from Matthew Boulton and Company’s Soho Mint in England.

Strike and Die State Characteristics

Early Die State: Examples struck from rust-free dies are very rare, featuring full denticles and full legends. Early to mid-die state coins plainly show slightly rotated repunching of the number 7.

Later Die State: Examples show prominent die flow lines, weak-to-flat denticles, and poorly defined tops of the legend lettering. The hair detail on Liberty is always poorly defined.

The 1807 Draped Bust Half Cent is Uknown in RB or RD

Despite the existence of several Mint State examples, the 1807 Draped Bust Half Cent is unknown in Mint State Red or Red Brown. 

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