1 Cent '1792 Silver Center and Copper' Pattern

Among the earliest pattern coins produced by the fledgling United States Mint, this piece was struck before the Mint Act of April 1792 had even been fully implemented. The silver center concept was a direct response to a specific problem: a pure copper cent at a useful size would have been too large and heavy for practical everyday use, so Mint Director David Rittenhouse and others proposed embedding a small silver plug to supply the remaining intrinsic value in a smaller, more manageable planchet.

The idea was ultimately abandoned. Congress and the public proved unenthusiastic about bimetallic small coinage, and the large copper cent — cumbersome as it was — became the production standard instead. Fewer than a dozen authenticated examples of this pattern are known to survive across the Judd varieties.