This just goes to show how much trouble they were having with these half cents in 1795. They struck these on cut down large cents and tokens as well.... the mint was just having trouble getting quality planchets.
That is a beautiful coin! Love that type of flaw... Never heard of "Tiger Striped" before. Was this a common thing in all copper of this time? Just half cents? Or.. is this unique? Love it!
Pretty cool pattern, reminds me of the pattern you get when you cut down cookie dough. Same look and what not.
I've never seen a planchet that rough before Matt. Says a lot about the problems they encountered in the early years of the mint. Very nice coin though. Bruce
This is a 1795 C-1 struck in 1795. At that time the mint was preparing their own planchets from whatever copper they could lay their hands on. In the case of the 1795 C-1 they were made from sheet copper rolled out by the mint with the copper coming from clippings leftover from the 1794 coinage of cents and half cents. The 1795 plain edge half cents were made from rolled stock, cut down TAL tokens and cut down spoiled cents. The mint did not begin ordering copper planchets from Matthew Boulton until 1796, but they did not order any half cent planchets until April of 1800. 1797 and 1800 half cents struck in late 1800 were struck on the Boulton planchets. The 1797's struck before September were struck on cut down spoiled cents. All of the 1802 half cents were struck on cut down spoiled cents but from 1803 on all the half cents were struck on Boulton planchets or after the mid 1820's on Crocker Brothers planchets.
