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Driving the Indian Head penny value higher…The Indian Head penny value referenced here -- its functional value to everyday Americans during the early years of its appearance – increased over time.The short story is that the Indian Head cent, designed to ameliorate a severe coin shortage, soon became the most available form of official US coinage during the difficult years of the American Civil War. Three types of Indian Head pennies……are pictured above. A collector would want an example of each in his US type coin collection.The first is a one-year type, the 1859 Indian Head cent. This was the first coin of the series, replacing the first of the US small cents, James B. Longacre’s Flying Eagle cent. The Flying Eagle coin was struck for circulation for only two years prior to the Indian Head. It was a clean and beautiful design, but it didn’t strike well – the full relief of the design was often poorly rendered in the finished coin. Longacre’s Indian Head of 1859 was better… …but not perfect. The laurel wreath presented on the reverse side of the coin, like the Flying Eagle, also had striking issues. The next Indian Head cent, beginning in 1860, featured an oak wreath with a US shield at the top, resolving the striking issue. This type lasted only through 1864, but for a different reason – the coin was made using a copper nickel alloy. And, as the American Civil War altered the economic as well as the physical landscape, the price of nickel increased dramatically. The Indian Head penny value followed suit, and the copper nickel small cents began to disappear from circulation. The final form of the Indian Head cent was a bronze piece (“French bronze” as numismatists would have it), represented by the 1873 pictured above, a coin whose intrinsic value was less than one cent. Even this coin was subject to hoarding as an official US coin! Indian Head penny value……was influenced by more than mere metallic content. Here is a catalog of the other factors involved in the underlying coin shortage in America:1) The influx of California gold beginning in 1849, so substantial that the relative value of silver declined, to the extent that $1.00 in silver coin was worth $1.06 in gold. You could make six percent on your silver -- just by exchanging it for gold! (An economics professor once told me that if I ever made less than 6% on an investment I should just drink it… Ah, the halcyon halls of ivy!) 2) The Coinage Act of 1857, which introduced the small cent (good!) but also demonetized and drove from circulation foreign silver coins (bad!), notably the Spanish silver reales, that had supported American coinage needs for two centuries. 3) The Panic of 1857, featuring the failure of a major insurance company (embezzlement!). 4) Certain international trading anomalies that put downward pressure on the price of cotton (Russian perfidy!) 5) And, as the final splash (so to speak), the wreck of the SS Central America with a huge shipment of gold desperately needed for bank reserves, during an 1857 (when else?) hurricane off North Carolina, with the loss of 400 souls. The big payoffOn payday you might receive your wages in a large sack containing Indian Head cents, “copperhead” tokens, and some bedraggled bits of Federal Fractional Currency. If your payout warranted it, a gold dollar coin or two might also show up.And the current Indian Head penny value?As for the current Indian Head penny value, suffice to say that it has been, and continues to be, a favorite among collectors of American coins in general, and of Civil War money in particular.The priciest piece in this series is the 1877 Indian Head. (Consult your local coin dealer for current prices.)
1860 and 1873 cent images courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries.
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