US Large Cents 1843-1857, and Altered Large Cents
(continued from Page 2)
MATURE YOUNG HEAD 1843 - 1857
More than 70 varieties of Large Cents are known. My other Large Cent coins that I found at various locations can be viewed in the Photogallery of US Copper Coins.
By 1857 the cost of making and distributing copper coins had risen. Mint director Snowden reported that they "barely paid expenses." Both cents and half cents had become unpopular and hardly circulated outside of the larger cities. The large cent was abandoned and a smaller cent was introduced in 1857.
The law of 1857 was beneficial to the citizens: by its terms, Spanish coins were redeemed and melted at the mint in exchange for new small cents. the decimal system became popular and official thereafter. The old method of reckoning in Reales, Medios, Shillings, etc. was gradually given up.
BROTHEL TOKENS - ALTERED LARGE CENTS, Early 1800s
This one particular type of alteration of a large U.S. cent was common in the early 1800s in America. These tokens are sometimes found around old cellar holes and tavern sites in the north-east USA.
Large Cent Half-Way Made Into a Whore House Token
It was done with a "graver" - a tool used in carving designs in printing plates. The metal was moved around on the coin's surface by the tool to alter the "E" in "CENT" into a "U" - thus making a Large Cent into a "Whore House Token."
Letter E Obliterated
"E" Altered Into "U" on a 1837 Large Cent
These large cents are often seen at the coin shows and are sold as a novelty.
Make a Donation
Please help me stay afloat, afford more metal detecting trips with field-tests and experiments to create more informative articles, useful tutorials and helpful guides for detectorists, and maintain this website - the most informative hobby resource on the web! Since I do not have any steady income, any donation matters to me a lot! Thank you kindly!
Clicking on the donate button will take you to a donation page powered by Donorbox and dedicated to my website (MetalDetectingWorld.com). The donation page is PCI-compliant, secured by SSL/TLS, and has a simple form to fill out. Donorbox does not store any card or bank data. Credit card information is encrypted and tokenized by the Stripe payment processor.
This website would not exist without the advertisements we display and your kind donations. If you are unable to support us by viewing our advertisements, please consider making a Donation to ensure the future of this website. By helping me keep this website alive and growing, you will sure help many detectorists around the world as well!
ANNOUNCEMENT:
In January of 2020, I started a one-time fund-raising campaign in attempt to accumulate enough money to buy a simple but reliable 4x4 vehicle. My old 4x4 car (made in 1995) had faithfully served me for 10 years before it eventually went beyond repair last October. Without a 4WD, I will not be able to get to my hunt sites and test-plots hidden in the remote wooded areas inaccessible by a regular car.
Unlucky for me, those sites are the only locations available and suitable for my field-work which results in informative articles you can find on this website. For the past 10 years, my usual field-work has consisted of field-testing the latest metal detectors and accessories, experimenting with some of them, and devising new effective search methods that meet the requirements of the new metal detecting reality.
Before my car died, I managed to finish a couple of interesting detector-testing projects which will be covered in my upcoming articles. But other equally important projects that I was working on were not completed and had to be postponed until the Spring 2020. I hope that this fund-raising campaign will help me get a decent 4x4 by then so that I will be able to resume my work and to write more new articles, tutorials and guides based on data gathered through testing and experimentation.
If you find my website useful and would like it to provide more essential info for you and other detectorists worldwide, please consider chipping in $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can afford to keep MetalDetectingWorld.com growing in 2020. I promise you, it will be money well spent. Thank you.
Donate
