1802 Draped Bust Cent - CU-1c-1802-05 Cud

Description

CU-1c-1802-05 preserves a rim fracture on an 1802 Draped Bust Large Cent from the earliest era of United States copper coinage. Robert Scot's Draped Bust obverse, which replaced the Liberty Cap design on the cent in 1796, depicted Liberty with flowing hair and a draped bust — a portrait reportedly inspired by a drawing by Gilbert Stuart. No cross-references to other attribution systems are known for this variety, and it is cataloged by Cuds on Coins. The 1802 Large Cent was struck exclusively at the Philadelphia Mint, the nation's sole coinage facility, on heavy copper planchets using hand-operated screw presses that required significant physical effort from press operators. Cuds on these early coppers formed through the same mechanism as on later coins — a complete rim fracture allowing metal to flow into the void — but the die-making technology of 1802 made such failures more likely because dies were produced through hand engraving rather than the hubbing process introduced later. Each die was essentially unique, crafted individually by engravers who cut the design directly into the die face, and the resulting variations in die hardness and geometry increased the probability of stress fractures at the rim. The 1802 Draped Bust Cent has an estimated mintage of 3.44 million pieces.

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