Lot 1103
1877 Indian Head Cent. NGC graded MS-64 Red & Brown. Well struck with very few marks. The surfaces are toned mostly brown on the obverse while the reverse is mostly red. This is widely known to be the key date in the Indian cent series. Curiously, Rick Snow reports that only two obverse dies and one reverse die is known for all the 852,500 business strikes reportedly minted. This is very unusual, as Mr. Snow relates that the average die struck about 200,000 coins during this period. Also, the known dies do not show remarkable die wear that would be associated with such a high mintage on so few dies. What does this mean? Possibly, the true mintage of the 1877 Indian cent is much lower than actually reported. Snow offers an opinion that perhaps only 250,000 were struck in all. If this is so, then the remainder of the mintage could have been coins dated 1876. No hard evidence for this theory is available yet, so this is at best just a thought experiment offered by Mr. Snow.
Estimated Value $4,000 - 4,500.
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| Realized $4,140 |
