I'm always on the look out for a nice low MS flying eagle for my type set. I sold off a cleaned one I had. Prices are always ridiculously high so today I decided to look into why. Between PCGS and NGC, a grand total of about 16k have made it into MS slabs as of 2020. That's 0.04% of the entire mintages. NGC certified 4k of them and PCGS over 12k of them. That's not very much. That's MS60 and up. NGC has one in MS67. PCGS has 3 in MS67. What happened? Nobody in the entire country could get a hold of original rolls to stash? You would've thought one collector somewhere would've stashed a couple thousand. Does anyone think there's any original hoards left to be discovered? This is one of them coins that a single find of original rolls could greatly impact values.
There are dealers / investors / speculators sitting on tens of thousands of flying eagle cents in lower grades, thinking they will make good money on them if they wait a few years for them to go up.
Most coins of that period were not saved that heavily, unlike the twentieth century. Coin collecting was not widespread in the country. I have always found flying eagles about as common as the indian head cents of a similar period in terms of scarcity. The large cents, being SO different than the new small cents, tended to get put away as curiousities more than the new small cents. IDK, I find flying eagles pretty cheap for their grades and dates. I usually end up buying vf'ish pieces I stumble across simply because they are cheap and I like them.
Two old men, brothers, had a corner store a block from my house. They were getting near death when I was collecting. One of them saved every Indian Head that came through the store. He had been saving them forever. He had coffee cans full of them hidden in the basement. I helped them a lot when I was young. I stopped at their house and helped with chores. They let me look at all the change in the cash register. They knew I was a collector. Sometimes the old guy would get a can of coins out and let me search. I got my Flying Eagles and early IHC's from him. Many of those from 1864 and up were still in circulation.
I have one, it's not anything special but I sent it in to get graded as well. I didn't even know it had a scratch until I got it back.
When you are 150 years old you default to being special. That is a fine coin. I like coins with character. Coins that look like they worked for a living. Nice eagle.
It was the time period. Coins were still a bit difficult to come by and it was a few years before the Civil War. Nothing was left to save by the average family.
I think that contributed to my fortunate collecting period. I started just after WW II. People were not working. Families were just beginning. A dime was a dime and piggy banks had dimes in them. All that change came out and I was in the right place at the right time.
They weren't saved because they were much more convenient to hold in your pocket and spend than the old large cents. The large cents weren't legal tender and merchants HATED them. Don't forget, too, that at the same time the Flying Eagles were authorized, the US demonetized Spanish coins. People were trading in their old coins for the new ones...and the new ones got spent.
Coin collecting in America got started in 1857. Prior to that, there were very few collectors. The inspiration was the passing of the large cents. People started collecting them, but they didn’t take huge shine to their replacements.They were saved, but not huge quantities. In addition a cent had more buying power then. You couldn’t save huge numbers of them without curbing you current consumption. One more factor is that many Flying Eagle cents were not well struck. They often come weak in the tail feather area because it was opposite the wreath on the reverse. Finding the “perfect” piece was not without effort, ever in 1857.
Quite a few are on the right track as to why mint state survivors are so far and few between. What gets over looked is the hoarding of silver. Silver you ask? The price of the shiny metal had risen beyond that of it's face value. As such, large quantities were hoarded, tons going into Mexico and South America to be melted. Soon, copper faced the same. Although for different reasons. It was a fear of the ravages brought on by war combined with a rise in cost associated with coppers use in the war effort. With the mint unable to strike enough small cents to meet demand, Civil War tokens and Store Cards (merchant specific coins) largely composed of bronze, quickly outpaced the government issued copper cent. During the war years coinage paid for a large armies on both sides. The average person needed more due to a rise in cost for goods as a result. Despite the high mintage numbers of the Flying Eagle and the new Indian Head cent, which had mintages in the 35 million range in 1864-65, by 1866 the number dropped to under 10 million. Why? Because these hoarded cents were returned to circulation by the bag full following the war. Again, looking at the numbers, levels seen during the 1860"s would not be reached again until 1880. So in short, there was no great need for cents over a fifteen year period with an over abundance of pre-Civil War coinage circulating. Which included Flying Eagles still much in circulation. Don't forget, this country experience an economic boom during those years following the war.
Almost every decent one you find has been cleaned or is scratched. They’re rather expensive even in lower grades. I forgot about the need for civil war tokens. Yeah I guess they all just circulated out of need
Yeah the civil war and the lack of collectors of us coins. Look for a nice au 58. They’re out there and cheaper than ms
