Flying Eagle Cents

James Barton Longacre designed the Flying Eagle cent, drawing on work he had been doing at the Mint for over a decade. Longacre had succeeded Christian Gobrecht as Chief Engraver in 1844, and while his tenure produced some notable designs, including the gold dollar and double eagle, he was not universally admired for his engraving skills. Mint Director James Ross Snowden and others at the Mint had their doubts about Longacre's abilities, and the internal politics surrounding the new small cent were complicated. The flying eagle on the reverse was adapted from Gobrecht's soaring eagle that had appeared on the 1836-1839 Gobrecht dollars, a design Longacre modified for the smaller format. The obverse, which became the reverse in production (the eagle side was technically the obverse per Mint convention, though collectors have always treated it the other way around), featured a wreath of agricultural products enclosing ONE CENT. Longacre's eagle worked reasonably well as a design, though the high points of the eagle's breast and tail feathers would prove troublesome in production, a problem that nobody fully solved during the coin's brief life.