This was the first Half Cent I purchased. I’ve owned this for about 40 years and I have no intentions of selling it. It’s a beautiful coin. Sorry the photos are a little dark but you can see the amount of red and detail that’s still there. If one is a collector of Half Cents you should know that this is really a Half Cent Token. That’s because no 1837 Half Cents were minted. This, as are all others were minted and issued by businessmen. Small change was desperately needed in circulation as of the dating of this piece. While similar in a lot of ways there are noticeable differences. The first photo reads “HALF CENT WORTH OF pure copper. The second photo has an Eagle centered with the words, “U.S. STANDARD WEIGHT N VALUE” with the date at the bottom. No where does Lady Liberty appear on this piece.
But it was the only Hard Times token that was frankly valued as a half cent. It goes to show what the government was coming to realize. There was little demand for half cents.
The dies for this piece were made by Edward Hulseman who was living in Attleboro, Massachusetts when he made this piece. He was a leading die maker for the Hard Times tokens. Later he moved to New York City. His most famous work during that period was the Hawaiian Keneta (one cent).
