The 1799 cent is the rarest date in the entire cent series from 1793 to date. Knowledge of the rarity of this issue dates back to the 1820s. Joseph Mickley, who was a pioneer U.S. coin collector, discovered that after accumulating a large number of cents that he did not have pieces that were dated 1799 and 1815. The 1799 cent was of especial interest to him because that was his birth year. Mickley was able to obtain an example of the rare date, but from that time forward, the coin has had a deserved reputation for rarity. There are two major varieties of the 1799 cent, an overdate and a regular date. The overdate is far scarcer, but both are difficult to locate. Many counterfeits have been made over the years, often from altering the date of a 1798 cent. Why is the 1799 cent so scarce? There are several reasons. First, most of the coins produced in 1799 were dated 1798. Once more, the old dies were too good to throw away. Second, by this time the mint had been importing cent planchets from England. The cent blanks were transported by ships which frequently had seawater in their holes. If the blanks were bathed in seawater, they were usually corroded. The mint frequently cleaned the blanks, but the damage had been done. The cleaned planchets were more prone to corrosion while in circulation. Third, the dies were out of alignment in the coin press. Sometimes the obverse die was tilted toward the date, which made that feature stronger, but the usual position was toward the word “LIBERTY” which left the date weak. The weak dates frequently wore off comparatively quickly which made the coin uncollectable for early collectors. Fourth, there were few coin collectors in the United States prior to 1857. Therefore few of the coins were set aside. They wore out in circulation. It is interesting to note that the finest known 1799 cent came from England where a collector there carefully preserved it.
