1792 Silver Center Large Cent.

Yes, it was an experiment that was ultimately abandoned. Not very practical.

13 are known, with a unique one with no plug in the center.

it would cost you only 180,000 in Fine, 300,000 in Very Fine, 400,000 in Extra Fine, and 500,000 in About UNC

so the answer is no, you probably would not be able to collect these

LOL! I've always thought the same thing about the 1793 Chain Cent. I never have liked that wild hair look.

The silver center cent comes three ways, with the silver center, with the silver alloyed with the copper, and as a pure copper version. The silver centered version was the coin as originally proposed and only a few were made. (In addition to the known specimens there are also two blank planchets in existence and one planchet without the silver center. These were found by Frank Stewart when he dismantled the first US Mint in the early soth century. They are now part of a collection held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.)

The alloy pieces were made to explore the possibility of fusing the two metals and avoiding th difficulty of make the bimetalic coin. These are scarcer than the silver centered pieces.

Finally there is the pure copper piece. This was made to demonstrate that it was not possible to tell a pure copper fake from the fused alloy piece. There is only one or two of this piece known. The only way to tell the pure copper coin from the fused alloy is by specific gravity.

A few years ago a new specimen of one of the non-silver plug versions turned up at the ANA convention. PCGS promptly slabbed it as one of the fused alloy pieces, but they didn't bother to put the specific gravity on the label. Since it is COULD have ben a copper version I contacted them to find out what the Specific gravity of the piece actually was. Their answer.....they never bothered to do a specific gravity test. Now they identified the coin on the label as a specific variety, that can only be told from another variety by a specific gravity test, and they didn't bother to perform the test? What if this piece IS the much rarer copper version? If so then it is currently mis-identified and when it was sold the previous owner was cheated out of money that should have come to him. And of course now it will never be learned for sure just what the coin is because it is already slabbed.

Would not be good to crack it out first - let them do that. If I were the owner, I'd definitely be having them fix that little oversight - pronto.