August 4, 2008: "Complete Mint Set"

Author:
A. Terranova

Concept:
Based on the suggestion of a dealer friend, we opted for an ‘interesting numismatic tidbit’ theme this week, highlighting the oft-overlooked fact that in 1816 the mint produced just a single, solitary denomination. The cent.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
Once we settled on this theme we had a more difficult time than usual settling on the right words.

We started with the conventional approach, listing this specific coin and trying to make our point using the caption:

1816 Matron Head 1c. MS64 BN [PCGS Rattler].

"Also known as a complete 1816 mint set."

But we decided we needed a more explicit presentation, and so eschewed the individual coin listing and decided to go all the way with the mint set theme:

Complete 1816 Mint Set.

"Of course, they only struck cents in 1816,
so a complete mint set includes just this one coin."

But somehow that word order seemed a bit awkward, and so we changed it to the final version.