I have a 1837 large one cent peice when I hold the coin straight then I flip it over the back is out out of line from the front of the coin. The one cent aims at two oclock. Does anyone know if there is an error in 1837. It also says millions for defense on the back I cant find one on the internet like it. Any info on this.
Hi, You have what is called a "Hard Times Token" . You can do a search on that term to find a ton of info on these. They were made privatelty due to a shortage of circulating , smaller denomination coins during the period from about 1837 - 1844. They are known to have varying degrees of die rotation. I can't tell you specifically what your piece is worth as these "tokens" are not my specialty. I hope you enjoy researching the piece, you can learn a lot by finding out about Fun items like this!! Have a GREAT Night!! Bill PS: These "Hard Times Tokens" were not produced by the Mint although their designs were similar.
I also think the reverse has been altered. I believe the word NOT has been removed from aove One Cent. This was a very common alteration.
Conder is right. Also, the words "FOR TRIBUTE" were removed below the "One Cent" - you can see remains of the letters there.
Slightly rotated reverses from the obverse on many coins has little effect on the value and is a lot more common than many are aware of. For instance the Mercury Dime is notorious for this slight rotated reverse. I was talking ot dealer that was not aware of this so we looked at about 20 of he ones he was selling and 9 of them had the reverse on a slant. I've actually found one that has the reverse almost 90 degrees off. Even if yours was a real coin, that reverse offset wouldn't have made a big difference.
