Matron Head Large Cent

Matron Head Large Cents are relatively scarce in every collectable grade, but especially in mint condition.

Specifications

 * Designer: Robert Scot
 * Obverse Design:
 * Reverse Design:
 * Edge: Plain
 * Weight: 10.89 grams
 * Diameter: 28-29 millimeters
 * Composition: Copper (100%)
 * Dates Minted: 1816-1839

Background
If you’ve come across a virtually uncirculated red-brown Matron Head large cent, chances are it’s dated 1818-20, and comes from a famous U.S. coin hoard find. In fact, most of the uncirculated Matron Head large cents out on the market come from this hoard.

The Matron Head large cent is also known as the Coronet Head large cent. It’s called the Matron Head large cent due to the somewhat portly, masculine, “matronly” (if you will) portrait of Miss Liberty on the obverse. It’s our nation’s sixth large cent type, and continues the tradition of a Miss Liberty bust on the obverse, and “One Cent” within a wreath on the reverse. The Matron Head cent appeared in 1816, following the only year in U.S. history where one-cent coins were not stuck (that would be 1815, of course).

After 1839, the Matron Head large cent was replaced by the Braided Hair large cent. Today, the Matron Head large cent is popular as the first of the two “Middle Date” large cents.

History
The United States Mint had actually received their shipment of copper planchets from England in late 1815. There had been a longer-than-usual delay, thanks to the War of 1812, where the United States was actually at war with its copper supplier! Consequently, the planchets arrived too late for 1815 large cents to be struck, BUT, the first 1816 Matron Head cents were actually struck in late 1815, though they bore the date of 1816!

The quality of copper planchets was clearly superior to those used for the Classic Head large cents of 1808-14. While the Classic Head large cents wore out or become dark and corroded easily, the Matron Head large cents survive today in far better condition, even though like all large cents, they circulated quite a bit.

Interestingly, the ONLY coins struck by the United States Mint in 1816 were Matron Head large cents! A fire had destroyed much of the minting machinery at the Philadelphia mint in January of 1816, mainly the machinery used to strike silver and gold coins. Rather than invest the time and money to replace the destroyed machinery, the mint officials chose instead to coin large cents, as demand for small change for our new nation was great. Besides, foreign silver and gold coins were still plentiful enough to fill the need for the coins of higher denominations.

Unlike U.S. large cent types of 1793-1814, the U.S. Mint was clearly devoted to striking plenty of large cents. From 1816 to 1839, the entire span of existence for the Matron Head large cent, mintages for the large cent fell below 1.2 million only once: that was in 1821 when just 389,000 were struck. The first year of issue, 1816, has a recorded mintage of 2.8 million, followed by 3.9 million in 1817! Those are high mintages for a U.S. coin from what are arguably, “Early U.S.” years. In fact, the dates of 1816-20 all retail just $25 in Good, $35-$50 in Fine.

Collecting
One interesting thing you’ll notice when looking at Matron Head values, is that the 1818 and 1819 dates have the lowest retail value ($270 and $285 respectively) in Uncirculated condition, than any of the other dates in the series. As you might surmise, if you read the first paragraph, this has to do with what is known as “The Randall Hoard.” This was a large mint-sealed keg of Matron Head large cents, found in 1867, all dated 1818-20. As I said before, this is where most of our uncirculated Matron Head large cents originate from. It took until roughly 1912 for all this mint-state red-brown large cents to be distributed.

Though the 1821 has the lowest RECORDED mintage of any one date (389,000) there is the strange case of the 1823 date which is perhaps scarcer. But for some reason, we don’t know exactly what the mintage figures are for the 1823 large cent, because they were all included in the 1824 mintage of 1.2 million. So a lot of those 1.2 million cents were 1824's, and some were 1823. The 1823 Matron Head cent is the scarcest and most expensive of the Matron Head cents, retailing $80-$90 in Good, around $300 in Fine. There is a rare overdate in the series, the 1839/36 that retails higher at $425 in Good.

The 1821 and 1823 dates aside, almost all dates in the Matron Head cent series will retail roughly $25 in Good, $40 in Fine, $80 in Very fine, $175 in Very Fine. In other words, this is a great series to collect by date, as there are only a couple of dates that will test your persistence.

Varieties
If you want to go deeper than just obtaining Matron Head cents by dates, there are some varieties you can go for as well. For instance, the 1817 cent has a 13-stars variety as well as a 15-stars variety. There are a few overdates: 1824/22, 1826/25, and that rare 1839/36. And then there are the “Young Heads” of 1836-39– there are actually four Young Heads in all: the Booby Head, the Silly Head, the Petite Head and the Head of 1838. All feature a noticeably slimmed-down, longer-nosed, somewhat sassier-looking Miss Liberty. These Miss Liberty busts look so different from the Matron Head busts of 1816-35, that they could be their own type– but they aren’t. And the good news for variety collectors is that none of these Young Head sub-types retails for much higher than the standard common date Matron Head large cent.

Grading
What makes for a high quality piece? With these large cents, nice surface toning is worth a premium: deep chocolate brown, red-brown, yellowish light-brown, with no corrosion, roughness. As for detail, you want to see much of the hair curls intact, ear detail, eye and mouth detail, defined stars and a clear date. The reverse wreath will have bold leaf detail.

Around 1834-38, while the Matron Head large cent was still being produced in large numbers, there appeared on the scene, a number of different types of “large cents.” These new coppers featured designs showing Andrew Jackson, mules, turtles, sailing ships, bank institutions, even slaves. But these coppers were not official U.S. large cents– these were what is known today as, ‘Hard Times Tokens,’ a proliferation of large cent-sized cent tokens issued by private interests during the Depression of the 1830's.

Mints

 * Philadelphia Mint (No mintmark)