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Message:: [QUOTE="johnmilton, post: 25212378, member: 101855"]The mint employees hated working with the copper-nickel planchets which were the base for the copper-nickel Flying Eagle and Indian Cents. The medal was hard a chewed up dies like crazy. Nickel also has a higher melting point than copper, which makes it more difficult to merge into the alloys required. The Civil War tokens, which were lighter and thinner, showed mint officials that a smaller, lighter cent would be accepted. Therefore the bronze cent replaced the copper-nickel type. The 1864 Bronze cents were made from the old dies that had been used for the copper-nickel type. Designer, James Longacre, decided to redo the Indian Cent design slightly. The most obvious change was the addition of his initial "L" to the ribbon below the Indian's headdress. If you compare the 1864 Bronze Cents with the 1864-L cents closely, you will find other very minor differences. One of them is the shape of the point of the Indian's bust. It's rounded on the Bronze variety and pointed on the "L" variety. 1864 Bronze, left, 1864-L right [ATTACH=full]1605482[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]