who likes large cents??

another false rumor by Ruben.

The only non-legal tender was the Trade dollar, which was monetized, then unmonetized and finally remonetized by Richard Nixon.

 

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Actually, Ruben is right this once. It wasn't until The Legal Tender act of 1933 was passed by congress that half cents and large cents became legal tender.

 

How could you have missed this most fundamental history of US Coinage.

Incredible....

Ruben

 

http://www.coinfacts.com/small_cents/cents_flying_eagle.html

There are two popular major varieties of the 1858 Flying Eagle Cent often collected alongside the 1856 and 1857 coins to complete a set. In fact, there are other minor varieties, but these are for the specialist. The two major varieties, Large Letters and Small Letters, are reasonably easy to identify. The difference in the lettering in the AM of AMERICA is obvious. As in 1857, there are Proof and business strikes of the date to be collected. There is also an important 1858/7 overdate rarity only discovered in recent years. This overdate is believed to be a refurbished 1857 die with the 8 added later.

Like the Large Cent, the Small Cent was not legal tender, so it should have come as no surprise that it, too, would be rejected by bankers and merchants.

 

http://64.233.169.132/search?q=cach...856&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Soon the novelty of the nickel cent wore off and they too started to accumulate in the same fashion as the old coppers. Small bags of 10, 20 and 50 pieces would commonly trade in place of larger denomination coins. By the 1860's there was a glut of nickel cents in the economy. Like the old coppers before them, the nickel cent had no legal tender status, so they could be refused if so desired. What was once a cure was now a curse. Of course this would all change with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

 

http://www.pennies.org/index.php?Itemid=45&id=31&option=com_content&task=view

* The Flying Eagle cent was first produced in 1856. This coin was notable for its change in composition -- 88% copper and 12% nickel.

* The Indian cent was first introduced in 1859 and depicted an Indian princess on the obverse. A popular story about its design claims a visiting Indian chief lent the designer's daughter his headdress so she could pose as the Indian princess. Most Indian cents minted during the Civil War went primarily to pay Union soldiers. After the Civil War, in 1864, the composition of the one-cent coin was changed to 95% copper and 5% zinc.

* The one-cent coin was made legal tender by the Coinage Act of 1864.

 

I believe that act only made the small cents legal tender; not the large cents. They weren't made legal tender until 1933.

 

There is more information on this around the net. I've done a lot of reading on this topic and can't find all my resources. Generally I keep intersting resources I find on my webserver, archived at http://www.mrbrklyn.com/resources/ but I haven't done that for the coin research. Big mistake.

The main thrust of things is that only silver coins were legal tender until a change in the law in 1856 which changed much of the coinage by outlawing or decommissioning the spanish reals and such, and bringing on the small cent. Also affected was the 2 and 3 cent pieces. Evidently though, even the flying eagle wasn't considered legal because of the lack of silver.

To get around some of the legal mombo jumbo they also tested several low silver patterns for dismes and half dismes

Ruben

 

They got 'em on E-Bay. Same dude that's sellin' the 1806 S$1.

 

I like the 1837. Large Cents dated 1836-38 are cool; it's interesting to watch the portrait of Liberty slowly evolve from the Matron head to the Coronet style.

 

Best coin of the thread. :thumb: Nice.

 

i'll buy some!!

 

I love large cents.

 

these are two of the nicest cent coins I'd ever seen,


Ruben