1870 Cent Patterns

About This Coin

Designed by William Barber at the Philadelphia Mint, the 1870 Cent Patterns belong to the Standard Silver Patterns series — a comprehensive program envisioning the entire American coinage lineup replaced with a unified design family based on a proposed "Standard Silver Dollar" of reduced weight. The cent denomination patterns explored how the unified design language proposed for silver coins might adapt to the base-metal cent, testing whether a single artistic vision could span denominations from one cent through the silver dollar. A notable result of $920 in PR55 at Stack's provides a market reference. Produced under Mint Director James Pollock and Chief Engraver William Barber, the 1870 patterns represent the most ambitious design unification program in Mint history. Though the Standard Silver Dollar was never adopted — the Coinage Act of 1873 took coinage in a different direction — these patterns survive as evidence of the proposal's comprehensive scope and the Mint's willingness to reimagine American coinage from the smallest denomination to the largest.