Indian head cent…. For @dbooster

Afternoon everyone……

Not that long ago, @dbooster posted an Indian head cent (or what most call a penny). He was showing off a few from his collection. I had made a comment on the post that I had a bunch in pretty rough shape like his, but that I also had one that was a nice graded example. He asked me to post it when I came across it.

When I got back into collecting/stacking roughly fifteen years ago. I had the thought of completing a mint state graded type set of US coinage. What that means is having one example of each type of coin produced by the US Mint.

Well…..

I grabbed quite a few graded examples of various US coinage. I’ve shared several of them here on this platform over the years. But after realizing that this wouldn’t be possible in mint state, due to pricing I gave up. While I would love to complete the type set, unless Mr. Millionaire @trumpman buys them all for me I’m out of luck.

Now back to the Indian head cent

The Indian head cent was produced by the US Mint from 1859 to 1909. It was designed by James Barton Longacre the chief engraver at the Philadelphia Mint.

There were three varieties on the Indian head cent. In 1859 the inaugural year the reverse only had a wreath design without the shield at the very top of the reverse. From 1860 till 1864 the Indian head cent aside from the introduction of the shield on the reverse, they were struck on a 88% copper 12% nickel planchet. From 1865-1909 they were struck on a planchet of 95% copper and 5% tin known as bronze.

The one I will be sharing today is a later date Indian head cent. It’s from 1902 Philadelphia strike coin. There were 87,374,704 of these struck. Who knows how many of these have been melted down or are in a condition that are mostly unrecognizable, but this one sure isn’t in that category.

It’s a graded Mint State 65 Red from PCGS. That’s a really high grade for these coins, especially in the states “Red” designation. Most of these have turned brown from environmental exposure. The “Red” designation makes this coin worth more than double a brown, because high end registry collectors want the best.

I don’t have access to what I paid for this coin, I currently don’t know where that list is. But I’ll give you some numbers on graded propitiation on this grade and higher. Between PCGS and NGC the two largest and most trusted grading services there are only 860 of this coin graded in this state with a red designation. That’s not very many. But in higher grades there are only 374 registered with a red designation. The highest graded Indian head cent is an MS68 and sold for over one million dollars at auction.

Here is my Indian head cent…