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Message:: [QUOTE="Clinker, post: 1488321, member: 6229"]Most of you know James B. Longacre designed the Indian Head Cent and a lot of you know nothing on the coin denoted he was the designer of the coin until 1864 when the initial "L" was added to the lower ribbon behind the neck. A few of you may even know he designed the two-cent piece, the nickel three-cent coin, the five-cent Shield Nickel first struck in 1866 and the three-dollar gold piece which was struck from 1854 through 1889. Do you know his middle name was Barton? Now, back to the Indian Head Cent. Take a good magnified look at the shield on the reverse of the 1860 cent (it's at the top between the two oak branches). Compare it to the shields on the reverses of the two-cent pieces and the Shield Nickels. Longacre liked the idea of putting a shield on the reverse of a coin and experimented with creating a better looking design. He was not the first to create a shield on a business strike coin. Many pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial and federal issue coins as-well-as tokens were designed with shields on them. In the past many family coat-of-arms were shields with specific shapes and designs on them. .Such was the pre-colonial Lord Baltimore coins.  Other pre-colonial coins with shield reverses include the 1776 Immune Columbia coppers. Post-colonial New Jersey adopted the Immune Columbia shields on the reverse of their 1786, ' 87, and '88 copper coins. Even some speculative patterns were designed with shield reverses including the "Getz Patterns" of 1792. Clinker [/QUOTE]

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