Braided Hair Half Cent

The Braided Hair half cent was the last design type of the U.S. half cent denomination, struck from 1840 until the half cent's discontinuation in 1857. It shares its overall styling with the Braided Hair large cent introduced around the same period, giving U.S. copper coinage a unified look in its final years.

Many dates in the 1840s and early 1850s were struck only in proof format for collectors rather than for circulation, since the half cent had limited practical purchasing power by then; genuine circulation-strike examples of some years are quite scarce as a result.

Christian Gobrecht is credited with the Braided Hair design, which replaced the Classic Head style on the half cent starting in 1840 and continued largely unchanged in basic design through the coin's final year of 1857. By this period, declining commercial demand for the half cent meant that mintages were modest and inconsistent.

The Mint Act of 1857 eliminated the half cent, along with the large cent, which was replaced by the new small-diameter cent, formally ending the nearly 65-year history of the denomination and making 1857 the final year of half cent production. Braided Hair half cents from that final year are considered particularly significant to collectors as the type's last issue.

Obverse: Liberty's head facing left with hair pulled back and braided, wearing a coronet inscribed LIBERTY, with stars around the border and the date below.

Reverse: A wreath around HALF CENT with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA circling the border, generally similar in layout to earlier half cent reverses but refined in style.

Diameter and general size remain consistent with earlier half cent types, with a plain edge typical of the series' later years. Because a number of dates within this run were struck only as proofs, collectors reference mintage records and known die varieties to distinguish business strikes from proof-only issues when assessing a particular date.

Common Braided Hair half cent dates in circulated grades are often available for a few hundred dollars, while scarcer dates, proof-only issues, and high-grade or well-preserved coins can bring well into the thousands of dollars.

The final year, 1857, carries extra collector interest as the last half cent ever struck, and tends to command a premium over more common dates within the type at comparable grades. As with all early American copper, originality of surfaces and color materially affects both desirability and price.