Draped Bust Large Cent
The designer of the Draped Bust large cent coin was Robert Scot who modeled the lady liberty on the face from a drawing by Gilbert Stuart. The Draped Bust large cent coin was minted from 1797 – 1807. This lady liberty presented a more youthful and feminine appearance than those preceding her with a softer face, a ribbon in her hair and a decorously draped bosom.
The Draped Bust large cent coin features the word Liberty above the Lady’s head and the date below. The reverse side is a wreath comprised of two olive branches that encircle the edge of the coin with the words United States of America surrounding the outer edge of the wreath. This was the smallest denomination coin of that era and over 16 million Draped Bust cents were struck between 1797 and 1807.
Due to underfunding of the mint, the high cost of copper, and the lack of training for mint employees, the Draped Bust large cent is a coin in which errors were frequent. Such errors as LIHERTY instead of LIBERTY, 1/1000 instead of 1/100 and INITIED instead of UNITED occurred. In many cases, the cost to make the coin was more than its value. All large cent coins were struck at Philadelphia and bear no mintmark.
Despite the growing pains of the US Mint, the coins of that era were useful and hard used. It is rare to find a Draped Bust cent in good condition, much less fine and the prices do jump even for a moderate increase in condition. The majority of copper coins from the Large Cent era survive in extremely worn condition with some years inexplicably (in some cases explicably due to low mintage numbers) rarer than other years.
A collector should be able to locate a Draped Bust coin with no problem. The problem will arise in locating one in better than average condition and that doesn’t mean good condition, but one where the features are still clear on the Lady Liberty bust would be better than average. As mentioned before, these coins were well used and passed through many hands during their circulation life. The 1797 and 1798 years are probably the most frequently Draped Bust large cent coins encountered.
One cannot discuss the Draped Bust large cent without mentioning the rare years including the 1799 Draped Bust large cent coin, which had only 42,540 coins minted in that year, and of those very, few have survived. There is a legend that the scarcity of the coins was due to a shipwreck carrying several thousand of the coins to Africa for trade purposes, but even so, the vast majority of these coins of this year are simply gone.
Value is in the eye of the beholder, or so it is said, and with the Draped Bust large cent, coin value is in the year and the condition. A fair estimate of a coin in Good condition from 1797 is around $130.00 while one of the more common Draped Bust large cent copper coins from 1798 is around $90.00 in the same condition. However if one were to locate a very common dated Draped Bust large cent coin in extra fine condition the value would increase to around 6 times that much. Of course, common dates naturally go for less but the Draped Bust large cent coin is an uncommon piece of history and the better preserved this hard used piece of history is the more valuable it is and will be.
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