While there has always been a strong demand for the large copper cents of the United States, the same cannot be said for the half cent. There is a growing number of collectors specializing in our smallest copper coin, however, as the history behind it is fully as interesting as any other coin of this country.
The increase in half cent collecting over the past few decades is due primarily to books written by Roger Cohen, Walter Breen, William Eckberg and Ed Fuhrman. The first three books were published some years ago, but the Fuhrman books are recent and very well done. There is also a group (“Half Cents”) on Facebook hosted by Mr. Fuhrman that is well worth visiting.
The half cent owes its existence to the January 1791 report on coinage made to Congress by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. In part he noted that:
“Pieces of very small value are a great accommodation … to the poor by enabling them to purchase, in small portions, and at a more reasonable rate, the necessaries of which they stand in need. If there are only cents, the lowest price … will be a cent; if there are half cents, it will be a half cent, and, in a great number of cases, exactly the same things will be sold for a half cent, which, if there were none, would cost a cent.”
The first half cents were coined in mid-July 1793
