History Of The Indian Head Penny

An Indian Penny is a coin that’s value equals one cent. It was minted from 1859-1909 in Philadelphia at the local mint, (also, in 1908 and 1909, it was minted in San Francisco). James B. Longacre, who was an engraver, came up with the design for the coin. The PCGS grading service gave it a grade of MS65-Red.

The front of the coin has Miss Liberty in an Indian Head dress of feathers along with the year it was produced. The band of the head piece also houses the word, “LIBERTY,” (mainly because it is a law that it has to be on every coin somewhere). This side of the coin also has the, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” written on it. Sadly, in the years between 1859 and 1864 it did not have any thing on it to show who the designer was. Then in 1864 the coin was switched over to bronze and Longacre got a chance to fix the image. At this point he put the initial “L” for his last name in the ribbon behind Miss Liberty’s head. The design remained the same until a minor change occurred 1870 by William Barber.

The back of the coin had two separate designs. Up until 1859 the back of the coin had the wreath of laurel on it with “ONE CENT” written on the back as well. Then, in 1860, the reverse side design was changed. Until the end of the mint cycle it had “ONE CENT” on it as well as a Federal Shield above it. The “ONE CENT” was wrapped in an oak and olive wreath that had a ribbon tying it together.

This coin was only 12% nickel and 88% copper. This was before the actual invention of the Nickel and this one-cent coin was sometimes referred to as a Nick or Nickel. During the Civil War they were moved to the back shelves and replaced with tokens in many of the state in the North. However, the popularity of the one-cent coin from 1859 did promote a new coin that was similar. However, the newer coin was made up of 5% zinc and tin and 95% copper. The coins weight was also lowered from 72 to only 48 grams. This was the coin that was used until 1982 when the one-cent coin we currently used was introduced.

There were 1,849,648,000 Indian Coins produced. In 1909 the S Coin had the lowest amount produced with only a mere 309,000. However, the 1909 coin is not the scarcest coin because there were very little 1877 coins actually kept.