1871

The 1871 two-cent piece had a mintage of 721,250 coins, continuing the downward slide that had begun in 1866. To put the figure in context: the half cent denomination, widely considered obsolete and formally discontinued in 1857, had reached lower annual mintages than 721,250 only in its final years. The two-cent piece, still technically a commercial denomination in 1871, was being produced in smaller numbers than a coin that had been dead for more than a decade.

The Great Chicago Fire began on the night of October 8, 1871, after two days of drought and high winds. Over the next 36 hours it destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of the city, killed 300 people, and left 100,000 homeless. Relief efforts drew donations from across the country, and the two-cent pieces that reached Chicago through church collections and benefit drives were the same coins that had been fading from circulation, now called into temporary emergency service. A penny was a penny. Two of them were worth the same whether the coin came from 1864 or 1871.

PCGS estimates about 700 survive across all grades, with 150 at the gem level. Finding an 1871 in Fine or better requires active searching, and Uncirculated examples with original color are scarce. A PCGS MS66 brought $6,463 at Heritage in February 2013. The 1871 sits solidly in semi-key territory alongside the 1870, and both are dates that a complete-set collector cannot skip without compromise.