1859

The 1859 Indian Head cent is the first coin of a design that would remain in production for fifty years. James B. Longacre, the Mint's Chief Engraver, created the portrait after the Flying Eagle design proved impossible to strike consistently. Liberty wears a feathered headdress inscribed LIBERTY, a concept Longacre described as blending classical Liberty with a Native American motif. The popular story that Longacre's daughter Sarah modeled for the portrait has been repeated since the 1860s, but researchers have found the same profile in Longacre's sketchbooks from a decade earlier, always with adult proportions and a long "Greek" nose. Longacre himself referred to the portrait as the "Venus Accroupie," a Greco-Roman statue displayed in a Philadelphia museum.

The 1859 is unique in the series for its reverse design. Instead of the oak wreath with shield that would appear from 1860 onward, the 1859 carries a simpler laurel wreath encircling ONE CENT. The design was changed after a single year, making the 1859 a one-year subtype within the Indian Head series. The coin is struck in the same copper-nickel alloy as the Flying Eagle cents: 88% copper, 12% nickel, giving it a pale, whitish appearance.

Mintage was substantial at over 36 million coins. The public embraced the new design, and the coin entered circulation across the country. Surviving examples are available in a wide grade range. The one-year reverse type makes the 1859 a mandatory acquisition for type collectors in addition to date collectors, which sustains demand and pricing slightly above comparable-mintage years with the standard reverse.

The 1859 Indian Head cent inaugurated a half-century of production. The cent Lincoln replaced in 1909 was the coin Longacre introduced in 1859. For fifty years, this was the face of the American penny: a woman in a feathered headdress, on a coin small enough to fit in a vest pocket, pale as a nickel in its early copper-nickel years and brown as a chestnut after the switch to bronze in 1864.