In 1857, the government decided that the old copper cent had to be abandoned in favor of the new copper-nickel coinage. The rising price of copper in the early 1850s forced this change, and the public was presented with a smaller and far more useful coinage, the famous Flying Eagle cent.
Although the old copper cents were generally disliked because they were too large and tended to become foul after years of usage, there were many people who had a nostalgic view of them and laid some aside for future generations. It was not long before serious collectors arose and they began to acquire such coins by date, to see if they could obtain a complete set back to the beginning of copper coinage in 1793. And from these efforts, the national hobby of coin collecting in America was created and is with us until this very day.
In laying aside these old coins, numismatists, as they were soon known to the general public, began to concentrate on those specimens they thought had the finest design, the Draped Bust cents. These famous coins, struck from 1796 through 1807, are still highly popular, and several books have been written to guide collectors in their quest for a better understanding of the series. The story of the Draped Bust cent began in the early days of the Mint.
During 1795, very few copper coins had been struck for the
