Complications with striking the Flying Eagle Cent prompted Chief Engraver of the United States Mint James B. Longacre to begin making patterns for the Indian Cent in 1858. The Indian Cent doesn’t portray an indigenous person but rather a Caucasian Miss Liberty wearing a feathered headdress. The new Indian Cent entered circulation in early 1859, and the coin became popular with coin collectors and the public in general.
The Indian Cent was in production for 50 years, with only a handful of changes to the coin over its half-century run. The first of these few changes came early in 1860, when the original laurel wreath on the reverse was transformed to an oak wreath. In 1864, during the height of the Civil War and a nationwide shortage of small change that ensued, the U.S. Mint replaced the coin’s 88% copper, 12% nickel composition with a bronze makeup of 95% copper, 5% tin and zinc due to low nickel supplies. And in 1908, the Indian Cent was struck at San Francisco Mint for the first time; this developed due to a 1906 change in coinage law permitting branch mints to strike base-metal coins. The last Indian Cents were minted in 1909. They were replaced by the Lincoln Cent, which debuted in August of that year.
Despite having been last struck well more than 110 years ago, the Indian Cent is still widely embraced by coin collectors today. The coins saw further popularization as a collectible in the 1930s with the emergence of penny boards and later coin folders designed for displaying these coins. Some (very) lucky collectors still pluck the occasional Indian Cent right out of circulation!
Many of the most common specimens can be had for just $1 or $2 in well-worn condition, though rarer dates are worth much more. The key date is the 1877, which has a value of more than $600 even in G4. Only 852,500 examples were struck, but Jaime Hernandez notes on PCGS CoinFacts that, “There is only one reverse die confirmed as striking all existing 1877 Indian Cents. However, if there was only one reverse die employed to strike all (877,000) 1877 Indian Cents, then this lone die should have sustained major planchet flaws when striking such a large mintage. Surprisingly, this is not the case since 1877 Cents show no traces of a damaged die. Therefore, it is strongly believed that the mintage of 877,000 coins struck, is actually a highly inflated figure.” Even still, Hernandez notes that, “Despite the 1877 Indian Cent having the second-lowest mintage in the series, it also survives in much smaller numbers than the 1909-S Indian Cent. This is mainly due to the lack of coins being collected in 1877 compared to 1909.”
Indeed, while the 1908-S and 1909-S Indian Cents are highly desirable series key dates, one of the most valuable Indian Cents ever to sell at public auction was an 1877. The PCGS-graded MS66RD specimen hammered for an astonishing $149,500 in 2007.