The Indian Head Cent, also known as an Indian Head Penny was produced by the US Federal Mint from 1859 to 1909. The coin was designed by James Barton Longacre and was pressed at both the Philadelphia Mint, from 1859 to 1909 and the San Francisco Mint for just two years: 1908 and 1909.
The coin features the head of Liberty wearing a traditional Native America feather head dress. The reverse side features the denomination "ONE CENT" wrapped by a wreath. The wreath was changed from a laurel to an oak and olive tied at the base in 1860. The Indian Head cent replaced the Flying Eagle Cent.
Total production of the Indian Head cent was 1,849,648,000 pieces. 1877 is considered the scarcest year even though less coins were minted in 1909. Coins struck from 1859 to 1864 contain 88% copper and 12% nickel. This was before the nickel was being issued and the coin was commonly referred to as a "nick" or "nickel". In 1864, the alloy was changed to bronze and the coins were made of 95% copper and a 5% mixture of tin and zinc. This also reduced the coins weight to 48 grains, it was previously 72 grains. This alloy mix was used until the modern copper plated cent was introduced in 1982.
Notable Indian Head Cents
- 1909-S was the lowest mintage with 309,000 produced
- 1877 is the scarcest year, with 852,000 produced but few remaining, especially in higher grades
- 1865 contains two types of 5's in the date (fancy and plain)
- 1873 contains two types of 3's in the date (open and closed)
- 1888 series contains an overdate
- 1875 features a tiny dot in the N in UNITED, this was only recently discovered and is thought to have perhaps been used to catch a mint employee who was stealing
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1879 Indian Head Cent AG obv Good rev 1635 |  |
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US $5.50 | 51m |
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1889 Indian Head Penny GOOD 19th Century COLLECTIBLE Philadelphia 49ML Rare Cent | |
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US $6.00 | 55m |
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1906 Indian Head Cent | |
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US $5.00 | 59m |
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UNSEARCHED WHEAT PENNY ROLL WITH AN INDIAN HEAD CENT END LOT ZJK29 | |
1 Bid | US $8.99 | 1h 48m |