Set report · United States · Half Cents & Cents
Braided Hair Cent: Who Owns What
How often each Braided Hair Cent coin actually turns up in a collection, measured by how many of the 1,099 collectors of this set have one. Coins are graded from Common to Extremely scarce against the set's most-owned coin — a measure of collecting frequency, not of how many survive.
Hardest to find in real collections
The five least-owned coins of the set — ownership counts are collector-reported.
…and the ones everybody has
Full set: ownership & rarity, coin by coin
Values by grade for each of these live on the Braided Hair Cent catalog pages and the full price guide.
| Coin | Mintage | Collectors | % of set collectors | How often collected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1839 | — | 227 | 20.7% | Uncommon |
| 1840 | — | 232 | 21.1% | Uncommon |
| 1840 Small Date Over Large 18 (Error) | — | 11 | 1% | Extremely scarce |
| 1840 Small Date (Variety) | — | 35 | 3.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1841 | 1,597,367 | 209 | 19% | Scarce |
| 1842 | — | 229 | 20.8% | Uncommon |
| 1842 Small Date (Variety) | — | 24 | 2.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1843 | — | 239 | 21.7% | Uncommon |
| 1843 Mature - Large Letters (Variety) | — | 19 | 1.7% | Extremely scarce |
| 1843 Petite - Large Letters (Variety) | — | 22 | 2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1844 | 2,398,752 | 247 | 22.5% | Uncommon |
| 1844 44 Over 81 (Error) | — | 11 | 1% | Extremely scarce |
| 1845 | 3,894,804 | 297 | 27% | Uncommon |
| 1846 | — | 268 | 24.4% | Uncommon |
| 1846 Medium Date (Variety) | — | 29 | 2.6% | Extremely scarce |
| 1846 Tall Date (Variety) | — | 24 | 2.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1847 | 6,183,669 | 364 | 33.1% | Common |
| 1847 (Error) | — | 19 | 1.7% | Extremely scarce |
| 1847 7 Over Small 7 (Error) | — | 12 | 1.1% | Extremely scarce |
| 1848 | 6,415,799 | 356 | 32.4% | Common |
| 1849 | 4,178,500 | 309 | 28.1% | Uncommon |
| 1850 | 4,426,844 | 294 | 26.8% | Uncommon |
| 1851 | 9,889,707 | 415 | 37.8% | Common |
| 1851 51 Over 81 (Error) | — | 14 | 1.3% | Extremely scarce |
| 1852 | 5,063,094 | 311 | 28.3% | Uncommon |
| 1853 | 6,641,131 | 374 | 34% | Common |
| 1854 | 4,236,156 | 294 | 26.8% | Uncommon |
| 1855 | — | 221 | 20.1% | Uncommon |
| 1855 Upright 5's | 1,574,829 | 2 | 0.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1855 Slanting 5's (Variety) | — | 27 | 2.5% | Extremely scarce |
| 1855 Slanting 5's, Knob on Ear (Variety) | — | 13 | 1.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1856 | — | 245 | 22.3% | Uncommon |
| 1856 Slanting 5 (Variety) | — | 42 | 3.8% | Extremely scarce |
| 1857 | — | 163 | 14.8% | Scarce |
| 1857 Small Date (Variety) | — | 19 | 1.7% | Extremely scarce |
- Common
- Uncommon
- Scarce
- Very scarce
- Extremely scarce
Based on the share of this set's collectors who own each coin — how often it turns up in a collection, not how many survive. Not the Sheldon rarity scale.
About these numbers
Ownership counts come from the same live per-coin counters shown across the LuckyCoin catalog; set-level collector counts come from the annual full-collection scan behind The State of Coin Collecting 2026. Counts are collector-reported and aggregate-only. Scarcity tiers come from 100 × (1 − owners ÷ owners of the set's most-owned coin): Common under 25, Uncommon 25–49, Scarce 50–74, Very scarce 75–89, Extremely scarce 90+. This reflects how often a coin is collected, not its surviving population — it is not the Sheldon rarity scale. CC BY 4.0 with attribution.