1877 Indian Head Cent

A penny for a nation in debt

The Indian Head cent was introduced in 1859, designed by James Barton Longacre, Chief Engraver of the Mint. Despite its name, it does not depict a Native American: it shows Liberty wearing a feathered headdress. Longacre said the face was based on a statue of the Crouching Venus on loan to Philadelphia, and he had used a similar head on the gold dollar and three-dollar piece. A popular legend held that his daughter Sarah had posed in the headdress of a Native American visitor to the Mint; she was in fact 30 and married in 1858, and the Mint Director denied in writing that the coin was based on "any human features in the Longacre family."

The first cents were copper-nickel. During the Civil War, cents were hoarded and merchants issued bronze tokens that the public readily accepted, so in 1864 Congress authorized a thinner bronze cent. That is the coin struck in 1877: about 3.11 grams of 95 percent copper with the balance tin and zinc, 19 millimeters across.

In 1860 the reverse changed from a laurel wreath to the oak wreath and shield seen on the 1877 coin. The design lasted until 1909, when Victor David Brenner's Lincoln cent replaced it.

Why the Mint barely made any

The Panic of 1873 began a depression that lasted until 1877. Banks failed, railroad building slowed and demand for small change fell. At the same time, an act of March 3, 1871, had let the public turn minor coins in to the government in lots of $20 or more. More than thirty million copper-nickel cents were redeemed and melted, and fifty-five million bronze cents were sold back to the Treasury. From 1874 the Mint stopped melting the bronze ones and began paying them back out in response to commercial requests for cents.

With old cents available to meet what little demand there was, the Mint had little reason to strike new ones. Of the almost 10 million cents turned in to the Mint in 1877, more than 9.8 million were paid back out. The supplemental mintage of new cents for the year was stated at 852,500, the lowest small-cent production since the 1856 Flying Eagle cent. Silver coins were also returning to circulation for the first time since the Civil War, further reducing the need for cents.

Some specialists think even 852,500 is too high. The Indian cent authority Rick Snow and others note that all known genuine 1877 cents were struck from a single reverse die, of a type last used five years earlier. A die in that era typically lasted for a production run in the low six figures, so if that one die had an ordinary life, the true mintage would be below the 309,000 of the 1909-S, which is generally called the lowest-mintage issue of the series.

Reading an 1877

Snow attributes two die pairs to the 1877 business strikes: one with the digits of the date set closer together, one with wider spacing. Both developed obverse die cracks in use. The Snow-2 variety shows an unbroken hub on the D of UNITED and a die dot near Liberty's neck.

The issue has a known weakness: the lower right corner of the N in ONE on the reverse is often soft. A sharply struck 1877 with a solid outline on that letter is exceptional.

Because nobody set the coins aside at the time, nearly all 1877 cents circulated heavily. Population figures cited in a 2026 profile show NGC had graded 4,422 circulated examples and 381 Mint State, only 16 of them Red, and PCGS 6,581 circulated and 1,206 Mint State, 91 of them Red. PCGS estimates about 150 survive in full Red at any grade and about 50 in Red at 65 or better.

Copper color matters enormously in grading cents. Brown and Red-Brown coins, which have toned, are far more available than Red ones, which keep their original mint orange. The finest Red coins grade MS66; a single PCGS MS66+ Red, nicknamed the "Golden Princess," surfaced at auction in January 1999 and was bought by the collector Stewart Blay, who later had it certified.

The finest few

An August 2007 catalog noted that PCGS had certified only six 1877 cents as MS66 Red at that time, and that NGC had certified none above MS65 with full Red color. One of the six, from the Santa Fe Collection, sold that August at a convention auction in Milwaukee. Its catalog called it tied for finest known, with vibrant copper-orange surfaces and a solid N in ONE, and it brought $149,500, a figure PCGS lists as the auction record for the issue.

Another MS66 Red, from the Gorrell and Joseph C. Thomas collections, matched that $149,500 in April 2009. A third, later in the High Desert collection on the PCGS Set Registry, had sold for $115,000 in August 2006. One industry account says MS66 Red examples have brought between $100,000 and $149,000, with the strongest prices from 2007 to 2009, and that a PCGS MS66 Red with a CAC sticker sold for $114,000 in 2019.

Not every record fits that pattern. The PCGS condition census also lists an MS66 Red that sold for $42,300 in August 2017 and $40,800 in January 2018, and a coin from the "Providence 1951" collection that brought $99,875 in February 2015, listed once as MS66 Red and once as MS65+ Red.

The key to the set

Indian Head cents were collected even while they were still being made, and inexpensive coin albums in the 1930s, when the cents were still common in pocket change, turned the series into a classic set to fill by date. Most dates remain inexpensive.

The 1909-S has a lower stated mintage, but collectors have long recognized the 1877 as the key date of the series. As one 2026 profile put it, the coin "reflects a nation in financial distress and a Mint adapting to economic pressure."

The numbers

Mintage

852,500 business strikes (some specialists think fewer); proofs estimated at 1,250 to 1,500

Known survivors

About 150 in full Red, about 50 Red at 65 or better (PCGS estimate); PCGS has graded 6,581 circulated and 1,206 Mint State, NGC 4,422 and 381

Weight

3.11 grams

Diameter

19 mm (19.05 mm in one source)

Composition

95% copper, 5% tin and zinc

Edge

Plain

Designer

James Barton Longacre

This coin's grade

PCGS MS66 Red

Timeline

1. Nov 1858

   Mint Director James Ross Snowden approves Longacre's Indian Head design for 1859.

2. 1859

   The Indian Head cent enters production, in copper-nickel.

3. 1860

   The oak wreath and shield reverse replaces the laurel wreath.

4. Apr 22, 1864

   Lincoln signs the Coinage Act of 1864, authorizing a bronze cent.

5. Mar 3, 1871

   Congress allows minor coins to be redeemed in lots of $20 or more.

6. 1873

   The Panic of 1873 begins a depression that lasts until 1877.

7. 1874

   The Mint begins paying redeemed bronze cents back into circulation instead of melting them.

8. 1877

   The Mint pays out more than 9.8 million old cents and strikes 852,500 new ones.

9. 1909

   The Lincoln cent replaces the Indian Head design; the 1909-S records 309,000.

10. Jan 1999

    The finest known 1877, later graded PCGS MS66+ Red, surfaces at auction and is bought by Stewart Blay.

11. Aug 2006

    A PCGS MS66 Red sells for $115,000.

12. Aug 9, 2007

    The Santa Fe Collection MS66 Red sells in Milwaukee for $149,500, the issue's auction record.

13. Apr 2009

    A second MS66 Red matches $149,500.

14. Feb 2015

    The "Providence 1951" coin brings $99,875.

15. Aug 2019

    A PCGS MS66 Red with a CAC sticker sells for $114,000.

The world in 1877

• Mar 2, 1877

  The Compromise of 1877 settles the disputed 1876 election in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes.

• May 6, 1877

  Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska.

• May 8, 1877

  The first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens in New York.

• Jun 15, 1877

  Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American to graduate from West Point.

• Jul 16, 1877

  The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 begins with riots in Baltimore and spreads west.

• Nov 21, 1877

  Thomas Edison announces the phonograph.

• Dec 6, 1877

  The Washington Post publishes its first issue.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1877 Indian Head Cent is number 68 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (40 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Mint paid more than 9.8 million old cents back into circulation in 1877, more than eleven times the number of new ones it made.
• Every known genuine 1877 cent was struck from a single reverse die, which is why some specialists doubt the official mintage.
• The "Indian" is Liberty in a headdress; Longacre said her face came from a statue of Venus, and the Mint Director denied in writing that it was his daughter.
• The 1909-S has a lower stated mintage, yet the 1877 is the series' key date.
• The finest known 1877 is nicknamed the "Golden Princess."
• During the Civil War, so many cents were hoarded that one New York City floor collapsed under the load.