Draped Bust Half Dollars 1796-1807

The Draped Bust portrait of Liberty first appeared on the silver dollar in late 1795, and the Mint carried it to the smaller silver coins over the next two years. Who designed it is not recorded. Tradition credits a drawing by Gilbert Stuart, and the Philadelphia socialite Ann Willing Bingham has been suggested as the model, but NGC notes that no document from the period links Stuart to the design. John Eckstein made the plaster models for the dollar, and the Mint's engravers, Robert Scot among them, cut the hubs.

The first Draped Bust half dollars carry the date 1796, but no half dollars were delivered that year. Three deliveries in 1797, on February 28, March 21 and May 26, total 3,918 coins for the dates 1796 and 1797 together. The traditional split credits the first two deliveries, 934 coins, to 1796 and the third, 2,984, to 1797. Steve Tompkins argues that about 1,000 of the May delivery were dated 1796, which would make 1,934 dated 1796 and 1,984 dated 1797. These halves keep a small eagle on the reverse and add the fraction 1/2 under the wreath, which no other denomination of the time carried.

The Mint then struck no half dollars until 1801. Silver depositors asked for dollars, and dollar output reached its peak in these years. When half dollars returned in 1801, they used the heraldic eagle already on the dime, half dime and dollar, modeled on the Great Seal, and the obverse settled at thirteen stars. Mintages stayed small in 1801 and 1802, about 30,000 each, and then grew. Dollar coinage ended in 1804, and depositors turned to the half dollar as the largest silver coin available: 839,576 were delivered in 1806.

Dies were used until they wore out, whatever date they carried. No half dollars dated 1804 are known; the coins delivered that year came from dies dated 1803, and two obverses prepared for 1804 were later re-dated 1805 over 4. Overdates also appear in 1806, and many 1807 halves are weakly struck. In 1807 the Mint struck both this design and John Reich's new Capped Bust half, without reporting them separately.

Obverse. Liberty faces right, her hair loose behind her and tied with a ribbon, a drape across her bust. LIBERTY is above, the date below, with fifteen or sixteen stars in 1796-1797 and thirteen stars, seven left and six right, from 1801.

Reverse, 1796-1797 (Small Eagle). A small eagle inside an open wreath, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around it, and the fraction 1/2 below the wreath.

Reverse, 1801-1807 (Heraldic Eagle). A heraldic eagle, shield on breast, grips an olive branch and a bundle of arrows, with the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM on a scroll in its beak. An arc of clouds and a group of stars sit above the eagle. There is no denomination on either face.

Edge. Lettered FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR.

Mint mark. None. Every coin was struck at Philadelphia.

Telling the varieties apart.

• 1803 Large 3 and Small 3. The difference is in shape more than size: NGC describes the Large 3 with serifs at top and bottom and the Small 3 with a slanted stroke and a serif only at the bottom.
• 1806 Knobbed 6 and Pointed 6. A round ball or a sharp point at the end of the top stroke of the 6.
• 1806 stem. On most reverses the stem of the olive branch passes through the eagle's claw. Two 1806 reverse dies lack that stem end: one paired with a Knobbed 6 obverse as O-108, the other with a Pointed 6 obverse as O-109.

Die marriages. Each pairing of dies has an Overton number (O-101, O-102 and so on within each date), from Al C. Overton's Early Half Dollar Die Varieties 1794-1836.

• 1796 15 Stars and 16 Stars: one obverse each, paired with the same reverse. The 3,918 figure covers 1796 and 1797 together.
• 1797: one obverse with two reverses, the first carried over from 1796.
• 1801: 30,289 from two die marriages, the first Heraldic Eagle halves. 1802: 29,890 from a single pair of dies.
• 1803 Large 3 and Small 3: 188,234 together, delivered from August 1803 into November 1804.
• 1805/4: two obverses dated 1804 and re-dated, in marriages O-101 to O-103; the 4 shows plainly. The rest of the 1805 halves come from normal-date dies.
• 1806/5: two obverses left from 1805, all with the Knobbed 6, in four marriages.
• 1806 6 over Inverted 6: the last digit first punched upside down, then corrected.
• 1806 date and stem varieties: Knobbed 6, No Stem, Knobbed 6, Small Stars, Pointed 6, No Stem and Pointed 6, Stem.
• 1806 E over A in STATES: an E punched over an A in STATES on the reverse.
• 1807: the usual figure is 301,076, but the Mint did not separate the two 1807 designs, and Tompkins estimates the Draped Bust coins at 760,076. The Capped Bust halves of 1807 began the next series.

• Weight: 13.48 grams (208 grains)
• Composition: silver at the legal standard of .8924 (about 89 percent), the rest copper
• Silver content: 0.3866 troy ounce
• Diameter: about 32.5 mm
• Edge: lettered FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR
• Designer: Robert Scot, from a design traditionally credited to Gilbert Stuart