1847 Braided Hair Coronet Head Cent - CU-1C-1847-03A Rim Cud

Description

Pre-Civil War die technology makes cuds on the 1847 Braided Hair Coronet Head Cent informative about early U.S. Mint die manufacturing and failure modes. CU-1C-1847-03A records a rim cud — the "03A" suffix indicating this is an early stage of cud 03 on the 1847 date (Cuds on Coins also lists 03B) — on Christian Gobrecht's Braided Hair design that served as the standard large cent from 1839 through 1857. Philadelphia, the only operating U.S. Mint in 1847, struck 6,183,669 large cents that year, each 28mm copper piece substantially larger than today's cent. The die manufacturing process in the 1840s involved hand-hubbing steel dies that were more susceptible to fracture than later mechanically produced dies, and the relatively soft copper planchets placed different stress patterns on dies compared to harder alloy compositions. Cross-referenced simply as CU-1C-1847-03A by Cuds on Coins, the "A" stage suffix indicates this is a specific die state within the broader 03 cud progression — meaning the die continued striking after the initial rim break formed, potentially with the cud growing larger or additional cracks developing around the fractured area. Braided Hair large cent rim cuds are collected both as die varieties and as historical artifacts documenting mid-nineteenth-century minting technology, and the 1847 date with multiple documented cuds provides a rich field for die break study.

Cross References

• CU-1C-1847-03A

External References