Making Cents

Most coin collectors know that the first U.S. coins to depict a historical figure were the Columbian Exposition half dollars of 1892. These pieces, initially called souvenir coins, were the first classic commemoratives issued by the United States and were struck to celebrate Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas in 1492. What most numismatists don’t know is that 99 years earlier, Congress considered—if only for a day—using the explorer’s portrait on the cent.

Establishing the U.S. Mint

Around three years after the Fugio cent contract coinage failed in 1788, Congress took up the idea of establishing a U.S. mint. On October 31, 1791, a Senate committee was formed “to take into consideration the subject of a mint, and to report a bill thereon, if they think proper.” Headed by former superintendent of finance Robert Morris, one of the group’s suggestions called for a cent featuring “a representation of America, in the usual female figure of Justice holding balanced scales, with this inscription, To all their due.”

This version of the mint legislation failed after several readings, but on January 12, 1792, the Senate passed a resolution calling for:

an impression or representation of the head of the President of the United States for the time being, with an inscription which shall express the initial or first letter of his Christian or first name, and his surname at length, the succession of the presidency numerically, and the year of the coinage…

The Getz Pattern Cents

Following the Senate’s adoption of this bill, it is widely believed that Morris had what are now known as the Getz pattern cents and halves struck for presentation to Congress. However, these pieces were rendered obsolete when the House of Representatives passed the Coinage Act of 1792, which provided for the establishment of a national mint. The act called for cents to be struck bearing “an impression emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the word Liberty, and the year of the coinage…and upon the reverse of each of the copper coins, there shall be an inscription which shall express the denomination of the piece…”

The 1792 Silver Center Cents

By summer of 1792, dismes and half dismes were struck pursuant to this legislation. Shortly thereafter, Henry Voight, who would serve as the mint’s first chief coiner, began striking the 1792 Silver Center cents, a pair of which would be presented to President George Washington by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson on December 18. These experiments did not conform to the Coinage Act of 1792, which called for a cent containing 11 pennyweights of copper. On January 1, 1793, members of Congress again debated the attributes of the nation’s copper coinage. The January 2 issue of the Philadelphia newspaper The North American reported that New Jersey Congressman (and future Director of the Mint) Elias Boudinot remarked

that the artists who had exhibited specimens of the figure of liberty on the several examples of coin which he had seen, all differed in their conceptions on this occasion—for the sake therefore of uniformity—He moved to add a clause to the present bill providing that in lieu of the figure of liberty, the head of Columbus should be substituted. Mr. Boudinot supported his motion by some pertinent remarks on the character of Columbus, and the obligations the citizens of the United States were under to honor his memory.

An Act Regulating the Coinage of Copper

Boudinot’s attempt to replace Liberty with a portrait of Columbus failed, but on January 14, 1793, Congress passed An Act Regulating the Coinage of Copper, which stipulated that the obverse of copper coins of the United States bear “an impression emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the word Liberty, and the year of the coinage…and upon the reverse of each…there shall be an inscription which shall express the denomination of the piece.” This basic design was used for all cents and half cents issued by the United States starting in 1793 and ending with the adoption of the Lincoln cent in 1909. 

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A version of this article appears in the May 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).