The new Mint Director, Robert Patterson, gave the job of redesigning the coinage to John Reich, assistant to Chief Engraver Robert Scot, and Reich's cent appeared in 1808. He used the same head on the half cent from 1809. Liberty faces left, her curls bound by a band inscribed LIBERTY, and the reverse shows a continuous wreath around ONE CENT. Collectors long called it the Turban Head, a name Edouard Frossard spread in 1879; Ebenezer Mason had proposed "Classic Head" in 1868, and Walter Breen brought that name back in the 1950s. Breen noted that the band Reich gave Liberty was, in ancient Greece, a prize worn by victorious athletes.
Reich's dies also changed how the Mint worked. LIBERTY was entered once in the master die, and the wreath and ONE CENT came from a hub, so far less had to be added by hand to each working die. Breen found these dies unusually durable, averaging close to 300,000 strikes each, and many were used until they were badly worn. That is why so many Classic Head cents show blurred borders and weak detail even when little circulated.
Every Classic Head cent was struck on blanks bought from Matthew Boulton's works in Birmingham, England. Trade with Britain broke down before and during the War of 1812. In November 1813 the Treasurer told the Mint to stop distributing copper coins, and on October 27, 1814 the coiner delivered 357,830 cents that used up the last blanks on hand. Coinage did not resume until December 1815, with dies of other dates, so no cent carries the date 1815. Scot's Matron Head design replaced Reich's head when cents resumed.
As with earlier cents, the mintage figures are by calendar year. Breen suggested that about 102,000 of the cents reported for 1808 were really dated 1807, and NGC records his estimate that only about 175,500 of the 222,867 reported for 1809 carry that date.
