A Beautiful Flying Eagle-The Best I’ve Ever Seen

Here’s a Flying Eagle Cent that is very rare. One of the rarest and made of a mixture of silver and nickel. It add so has a date that I never knew existed on this coin, 1855. It was a pattern piece before a pattern piece was minted. The first Flying Eagle coins were dated 1856.

 

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So this is a pattern piece, Dave?

 

Yes but it’s also a counterfeit piece. I just bought it last month. More importantly, I opened the package the day after I received it. Lol

 

Others, I bought it as a known counterfeit. I’ve never seen a Flying Eagle Cent with the date of 1855. As you know this was a very short lived series. Only made in 1856, 1857 and 1858. Several varieties exist. The 1856 was the first pattern piece and it was a limited quantity to show Congress what the coin would look like.

 

Are you sure it's a counterfeit. There were 12 different FE patterns minted in 1855, a number of which were minted in white metal. You would need to test your coin on an XRF machine to determine exact elemental composition, which is extremely important since some of them are R-8. There were four FE patterns made in 1854.
Also, the 1856 FE cent that everyone covets is actually a pattern. 1857 was the first regular issue of the FE cent.

You may have gotten lucky like no-regrts did with his 1943 mint error.

United States Pattern Coins by J Hewitt Judd MD, 10th Edition.

 

What I’ve posted is what I was told when I bought the coin from a reputable dealer. It would be nice if it was the real thing, a true pattern piece.

 

That would be nice!

 

It needs analysis on an XRF machine.

 

Thank you.

 

I thought I'd read that these FEC patterns were struck at the same size as large cents, but digging a little more, it looks like some were an intermediate size between the old large cent and the final small cent? I haven't yet found a simple table of patterns and diameters.

@Collecting Nut, what's the diameter on yours?

 

I don't have that but it’s smaller than a Large Cent and larger than a Nickel.