Is It Offensive to Complete my Grandfather's Indian Head Penny Collection?

Go for it, it would be a nice tribute to your grandfather as well as something to remind you of him when you see it on the wall.

 

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Always heard the "Indian" was a 5 year old girl who was running around the White House lawn with a headdress. I think your grandfather would be honored that you cared enough to complete his collection.

 

Your grandfather would be honored that you loved his bequest enough to finish it. I suggest that you limit your purchased coins to conditions no better than what he had so that it looks like a matched set. All of our grandfathers would be appalled that we have let the touchie feelie politically correct crowd take over the public discourse to the point that people must consider the "feelings" of other people before they decide to collect coins. There are people who rightfully have a problem with collecting Japanese coins; Russian coins; Cuban coins; Turkish coins; jewish coins, etc. but none of those folks have a right to tell others what to collect. They merely have a right to abstain themselves.

 

Noble idea to finish gramps collection. I think native americans are prould of this coinage. Take some picture of your other coins and post them. These members knowledge is priceless. Can tell you a fair price of the coins your wishing to sell to complete IHC collection. It will be fun for you as well as cointalk members. Plus they can tell you which IHC you have and If you might have an extra something on the coins that could triple its value. Good luck. And welcome to coin talk

 

Read up on Stone Mountain. Thats going to be next

 

I would love to be able to complete my ihc set. Probably will at some point if I can afford the key dates. Either way, my progeny may inherit the collection one day. I hope they are more enamoured by the beauty and history of the coins rather than being distracted by the current political sentiment associated with the imagery of the design.

 

I just hope they don't pick on GOD

 

Typically most campaigns to have names changed etc because they are "offensive" are promoted by rather small but very vocal groups that work at being perpetually offended. Polls showed that most native americans are not offended by masot names relating to Indians, Redskins etc but that vocal minority keeps hammering away at it until they get their way. Then they move on to something else to be offended with. As to the cents, it would not surprise me to find that most Native Americans may not even know such a coin exists, so how could they be offended by it? After all they haven't been ade for almost 110 years, and probably 90% of all the Native American alive today have never received one in change. It's a non-issue.

 

To that extent, what could they even do at this point? At WORST they would insist they are called “Native American” pennies or “indigenous people” cents, etc. not like there is a mint they are going to shut down for making them, and they certainly can’t take them from everyone.

 

I think it's great that you asked the question about offensiveness, it at least shows consideration for the perspectives of others, something sorely lacking today.

though at this point there is probably little that is offensive about so-called "Indian Head Cents."

 

My grandmother was 3/4 Native American and my grandfather also had some Native American in him. He had a collection of coins including the Indian Head cent. No problem.

 

Absolutely finish it. The deep rich history of the American Indians is amazing. Learn as you collect...

 

Thanks, everyone. A lot of good food for thought. While I digest, I figured I’d respond to the few of you who were interested in knowing what kind of coins my granddad pulled from the cash register 80+ yard ago. I’m not sure how much detail to provide. But in summary, I spent a few hours last weekend typing in the coins online and best I can tell there is nothing all that valuable. It looks like the whole collection is worth maybe between $500 and $1000, depending on whether I go off of ebay prices or the (seemingly much higher) redbook values.

The weirdest thing I found was I guess in his later years he worked for Hawaiian Punch, and as a commemorative thing they gave him a set of three coins that I’ve attached a picture of. The years don’t seem particularly valuable, but they’re nice coins. Too bad there isn’t a market for rare Hawaiian Punch memorabilia (as I suspect this is one of a kind). As for the other coins, they are generally all in very circulated condition (as you would expect). There are about 100 late-year Indian heads and a handful of early year ones. The best ones are a 1867 and a 1872 in decent shape. These are what he liked to grab, so they're 90% of his collection. As for the list of the rest of his cash register coins (none of which is worth more than 10-20 bucks best I can tell):

Lots of 1909 VDB pennies (no S)

1922 Liberty Dollar

1876 liberty dime

1884 liberty dime

1839 large cent

1894 dime

1827 large cent

1886 dime

1831 large cent

Morgan Silver Dollars (1879, 85, 89, 91, 98; 1900;1921)

And 8 buffalo nickels whose dates I can’t read.


Other than that, there are a couple things I guess he collected later:

1943 Liberty Half dollar

1949 Franklin half dollar

And two bills (see picture).

So there you have it. A small but interesting collection, but I suspect pretty anti-climatic for readers. But on the bright side for me, I have no sentimental attachment to any of the non Indian head coins, and I think if I sold everything but the Indian heads in the folder I could get all the cents for the co llection except the 1877 one. Since his collection is in well-circulated shape (you can’t read the “Liberty” on most of the coins except the two I mentioned), I figure I should be able to get fairly cheap coins for the set…no need for high grade stuff.

 

You're absolutely fine collecting these coins. I have some and many people do. Keep collecting them. They are beautiful and fascinating and they do also reveal a pretty complicated and very misunderstood history. If anything, honor them for the history they existed through.

That said, I think it's great that you asked the question about offensiveness, it at least shows consideration for the perspectives of others, something sorely lacking today. Some of the responses on this thread are clearly from people who have no idea what they are talking about and have probably never looked into the history of the founding of the United States in any detail. There are some very ugly things there that most of us decide to just ignore rather than face up to. I did for a long time. So I don't blame us, some of it is truly awful and easy and comforting to dismiss away as "whining." Denying PC is just the opposite mistake of PC; there is a more reasonable middle ground between these two extremes, but we seem to be a culture only of extremes, heightened by mostly opinion-based media.

Anyone who thinks that these coins were "honoring" Native Americans should look at some of the things that happened during their release - for just one example, Wounded Knee happened in 1890, quite late in the series. Someone may have wanted to honor them, but the history makes it difficult to reconcile the "tribute." True, atrocities were committed on both sides in those times and both sides have real grievances. I just wish people could see both perspectives, unclouded by today's shallow rhetoric on both the PC and anti-PC side (both are equally deluded, in my opinion) and see that we would be an even better country if we accepted our past, warts and all, atoned for it and tried to understand rather than attack each other. We're all people just trying to do our best. We also live in very sad times.

Thankfully, coins can cheer us up. But they should also awaken us to history.

 

That's right. Jefferson and Washington were both slave holders. Let's obliterate all reprehensible acts of the past by tearing down the monuments of great leaders. Lee and Stonewall Jackson will forever remain in my mind as two of the greatest military leaders of the South (and all time), but by all means, lets' deny they ever existed.

Such Poppycock.......

 

And forgive me, OP.........I've gone off the rails on this one, but it just makes me sick when certain groups think that removing monuments will make things go away. It's history for Gods sake, and it happened.

 

How do you think bald-headed people feel when they are forced to search for and collect any Draped Bust coin to fill a slot in their 19th Century Type collection?

 

Well GOD spelled backwards is DOG!

 

And Radar, spelled backwards, is still Radar.......

 

You called?