Flying Eagle Cent - Release, Production, and Collecting

Release, Production, and Collecting

The Philadelphia Mint released the new cents to the public on May 25, 1857. In anticipation of large popular demand, Mint authorities built a temporary wooden structure in the courtyard of the Philadelphia facility. On the morning of the date of release, hundreds of people lined up, one line for those exchanging Spanish silver for cents, the other for those bringing in old copper cents and half cents. From 9 am clerks paid out cents for the old pieces; outside the Mint precincts, early purchasers sold the new cents at a premium. Snowden wrote to Guthrie, "the demand for them is enormous ... we had on hand this morning $30,000 worth, that is three million pieces. Nearly all of this amount will be paid out today." The 1856 specimen became publicly known about the time of issuance, and had the public checking their pocket change; 1856 small cents sold for as much as $2 by 1859. The public interest in the new cents set off a coin collecting boom: in addition to seeking the rare 1856 cent, some tried to collect sets of large cents back to 1793, and found they would have to pay a premium for the rarer dates.

The Mint had trouble striking the new design. This was due to the hard copper-nickel alloy and the fact that the eagle on one side of the piece was directly opposite parts of the reverse design; efforts to bring out the design more fully led to increased die breakage. Many Flying Eagle cents show weaknesses, especially at the eagle's head and tail, which are opposite the wreath. In 1857, Snowden suggested the replacement of the eagle with a head of Christopher Columbus. Longacre replied that as there had been objections to proposals to place George Washington on the coinage, there would also be to a Columbus design. Despite the difficulties, the 17,450,000 Flying Eagle cents struck at Philadelphia in 1857 was the greatest production of a single coin in a year at a U.S. mint to that time.

In 1858, the Mint tried to alleviate the breakage problem with a new version of the cent with a shallower relief. This attempt led to the major variety of the series, as coins of the revised version have smaller letters in the inscriptions than those struck earlier. The two varieties are about equally common, and were probably struck side by side for some period as the Mint used up older dies. Efforts to conserve dies were the probable cause of another variety, the 1858/7, as 1857-dated dies were overstruck to allow them to be used in the new year.

The Mint prepared pattern coins with a much smaller eagle in 1858, which struck well, but which officials disliked. Snowden directed Longacre to prepare various patterns that he could select from for a new cent to replace the Flying Eagle cent as of January 1, 1859. The Mint produced between 60 and 100 sets of twelve patterns showing various designs; these were circulated to officials and also quietly sold by the Mint over the next several years. Longacre's design showing Liberty wearing an Indian-style headress was adopted, with a wreath with lower relief for the reverse of the Indian Head cent, solving the metal flow issues. On November 4, 1858, Snowden wrote to the Treasury Department, stating that the Flying Eagle cent had proved "not very acceptable to the general population" as it was not true to life, and that the Native American design would "giv it the character of America".

By September 1857, the volume of Spanish silver coming to the Mint had been so large that Snowden gave up the idea of being able to pay for it just with cents, authorizing payment with gold and silver coins. On March 3, 1859, the redemption of these pieces was extended an additional two years. With commerce choked with the new cents, Congress repealed this provision in July 1860, though Snowden on his own continued the practice for more than a year. Bankers Magazine for October 1861 reported the end of the exchange, and quoted the Philadelphia Press: "the large issue of the new nickel cents has rendered them almost as much of a nuisance as the old Spanish currency". According to Breen, "the foreign silver coins had been legal tender, receivable for all kinds of payments including postage stamps and some taxes; the nickel cents were not. They quickly filled shopkeepers' cashboxes to the exclusion of almost everything else; they began to be legally refused in trade." The glut was ended by the hoarding of all federal coinage in the wake of the economic upset caused by the Civil War.

After the war, the Flying Eagle cent re-entered circulation along with other coins. It remained there only a few years, being pulled out from among the new bronze cents in Treasury Department redemption programs in the 1870s. By the 1880s, it was a rarity in circulation. Today, Flying Eagle cents are relatively inexpensive in well-worn grades. The 2012 edition of R.S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins lists the 1857, 1858 large letters, and 1858 small letters each at $28 in Good-4 condition, the lowest collectable grade. The 1856 is $6,700 in that grade, rising to $22,000 in uncirculated MS-63. The 1858/7 starts at $75 in G-4, rising to $10,000 in MS-63. An 1856 cent in MS-66 condition sold at auction in January 2004 for $172,500.