Flowing Hair Wreath Cents 1793

About This Series

Replacing the controversial chain reverse after barely a month of production, the 1793 Wreath cent introduced a more artistically refined design while retaining the flowing hair Liberty portrait that defined the Mint's earliest large cent production. Adam Eckfeldt designed the new wreath reverse featuring laurel branches tied with a bow, and approximately 63,353 pieces were struck before this type too gave way to the Liberty Cap design later in 1793. Though more available than the chain cents that preceded them, Wreath cents remain genuinely scarce, and the series includes important varieties: the Vine and Bars edge lettering, the Lettered Edge type reading ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR, and the rare Strawberry Leaf variety — one of perhaps four known — which ranks among the greatest American numismatic rarities. Struck in copper on 26-27mm planchets weighing approximately 13.48 grams, these coins represent the second chapter of the United States Mint's inaugural year of production. Sheldon's Early American Cents catalogs multiple die varieties within this brief series, and specialists pursue them with the same intensity devoted to the chain cents. The Wreath cent's improved aesthetics demonstrated the young Mint's responsiveness to public criticism — a pattern of design evolution that would continue throughout American coinage history.