Another box of two, the 1857 large cent & the 1857 flying Eagle Cent

By the mid 1850s, the U.S. was looking for an alternative to the large cent. The “big pennies” had never been popular and had not circulated well outside of the big cities for many years. In addition the cost of producing them had made the large cent a drag on the mint’s operating budget. The solution was a smaller cent, but what would it be?

There are a number of pattern coins that were made in the made in the mid 1850s, and those who would like to research them can check any of the books on patterns that have been published over the years. Some of those patterns are not rare, as patterns go, and a few of them even crop up in the circulated grades.

The winner was a copper-nickel cent that weighed 4.67 grams with a diameter of 19 mm. The coins were struck on a thick planchette. The though was that the new cent needed to look like it was worth a cent, even though its metal content made it a token coin. The design was obviously inspired by the flying eagle that had appeared on the reverse of the Gobrecht Dollars that had been issued in the mid to late 1830s.

The new cents were an immediate hit. Citizens lined up in droves at the mint to get some of the new cents. Unfortunately the beautiful flying eagle design did not last. Striking problems, which had to do with the hardness of the copper-nickel alloy and the metal flow that the motif created forced its replacement in 1859 with the Indian Cent.

Here is new box of two. The 1857 Large Cent, which comes in two minor date size varieties, with a mintage 333,456 is viewed as somewhat of a “key coin,” but it is often available at reasonable prices. The 1857 Flying Eagle Cent, with a mintage of 17,450,000 is common in all grades except as a Proof coin.

An 1857 Large Cent



An 1857 Flying Eagle Cent




Of could one could have a “box of two” with coins dated 1856, but the Flying Eagle Cent from that year is a bit pricey.

This poorly struck 1857 Flying Eagle Cent shows the technical problems that plagued the design.

 

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That flying eagle took my break away. amazing grade.

 

This was the main reason for the desire to change the cent. The way the Mint was set up the public could bring their gold or silver to the Mint and have it converted to coinage free of charge. Copper was coined on the governments account and the expenses of the Mint were to be paid for from the seigniorage profits of the copper coinage. By the early 1850's though, rising copper prices had resulted in the cent sometimes having more than a cents worth of copper in it. In which case the government was issuing the copper coinage at a loss and there were no seigniorage profits from which to fund the Mint. (This same problem was why the weight of the cent was reduced in 1795 which eliminated the lettered edge coinage.)

First thought was a reduced size and weight. This resulted in the 1854 and 1855 "flying eagle" cents that were thinner and just a little larger in diameter than the current half cent. I suppose it was thought there would be too much confusion with the half cent though and eventually the coppernickel composition was selected.

The thickness was an attempt to still provide a coin with an intrinsic value somewhat close to the face value. the metal value of the coppernickel cents was just about .66 cents apiece, evenly divided in value between the two metals. (the 4.1 grams of copper was worth .33 cents as was the .56 grams of nickel, nickel being much more costly than copper. At the time copper was about 37 cents a pound, nickel was $2.68 a pound.)