1785 Bar Copper Cent 

The Bar Copper cent design has thirteen parallel and unconnected bars on one side representing the thirteen separate states united into a single entity as symbolized by the interlocking letters (USA).

The Bar copper is updated and of uncertain origin believed to have been struck in England.

From the New Jersey Gazette of November 12, 1785:  “A new and curious kind of coppers have lately made their appearance in New York, the novelty and bright gloss of which keeps them in circulation. These coppers are in fact similar to Continental buttons without eyes; on the one side are thirteen stripes and on the other U.S.A., as was usual on the Continental soldiers, buttons.”