The 1825 Half Cent

This coin was donated to the American Numismatic Society by Augustus B. Sage in April 1858. Augustus B. Sage, an early New York city dealer and collector, is perhaps best remembered today for his medallic series, "Sage's Numismatic Gallery."  It is variety Gilbert 1, Breen 2, Cohen 2.

Preparation for the coinage of 1825 cents began in the summer of 1824, when the US Mint wrote to Matthew Robinson Boulton, asking him to prepare half cent planchets. The planchets were made in the spring of 1825 and arrived in June. The Mint waited to strike the coins until they received an order for half cents, which occurred in November when the firm of Jonathan Ellicot & Sons of Baltimore placed a large order. Striking began on December 22, 1825, and by the end of the year 63,000 had been coined. It seems likely, however, that many of the coins dated 1825 were actually struck in 1826. 

Although half cents were not widely used (and none had been coined since 1811), they continued to play a useful role in linking the Spanish-American reales to the Federal denomination system. Since the Spanish-American real, one of the most widely circulated coins in the early United States, was worth 12-1/2 cents, half cents were often required to complete small transactions. The next two smaller Spanish-American fractions, the medio (worth 6-1/4 cents) and the cuartillo (worth 3-1/8 cents) were often rounded down. As the Spanish-American coins became more and more worn (and hence acceptableonly at 12 cents, if at all), and as the United States Mint coined more and more dimes, the need for half cents declined.

Bibliography:

R. W. Julian, "The Half-Cent Coinage of 1825,'' Numismatist (December 1996) vol. 109, no. 12

Walter Breen, Walter Breen's Encyclopedia of United States Half Cents 1793-1857 (South Gate California, 1983).