Short-lived series

dan1ecu

Does anyone know why Flying Eagle cents were discontinued so quickly? Was there controversy regarding the design? Was there politics involved in the decision, or was it made for strictly practical reasons? Deciding to change a coin’s design must be an involved process. Can anyone think of other series that were around only briefly? Are there interesting stories behind the quick changes?

Dan

MrLee

The public balked at excepting the Small Cent and felt the gov't was forcing it on them. Not only was the Large Cent still in circulation but the composition of the FE (88% copper and 12% nickel)created a cent paler in color then the large cents. Far more attention was paid to coins then as few used checks and credit cards did not exist. The "color" problem was later corrected with the Indian Head Cent in 1864 by increasing the copper content to 95%, removing the nickel and adding 5% zinc.

sinin1

1943 zinc-coated steel penny's (I'm gonna call this a series - although most would disagree)
1976 bicentennial stuff
Susan B. Anthony dollars
twenty cent pieces
$4 gold
$50 gold

well - maybe none of these were really series - but all short lived

braddick

People balked at using the smaller CENT? My understanding is this cent was wildly popular and many citizens lined up to turn in their "old, worn out large copper" cent for these new little ones.

My understanding is the MINT was having some difficulty striking these and went with the easier to strike designed Indian cent.

bennybravo

There were difficulties with the striking of Flying Eagle cents, and often the head and tail of the eagle would be weakly defined due to the depth of the design at those points, which were opposite heavy wreath details on the reverse.To remedy this, the Indian head cent replaced it in 1859.

bennybravo

sorry Braddick, you already said that.I missed it.

sumnom

Did the four dollar gold pieces circulate? I thought they were only patterns.

bennybravo

No, they didn't circulate.You are correct.They are patterns.The coiled hair was designed by Morgan, and the flowing hair by Barber.

bennybravo

I just found this nice little write up on stellas, check it out.


1879-80 STELLA

Conder101

The smaller cent DID cause circulation problems. When the small cent was introduced people thought it was great and took all of their cashes of the old disliked large cents in for redemption. This resulted in a tremendous number of cents suddenly being available for use, many many more than were actually needed. So people started making their purchases in cents in order to get rid of them. But the cents were NOT legal tender and since the banks didn't want to get inundated with these coins they started refusing to accept them. So now the merchants tills were piling up with cents that the bank woudn't take so they had to start trying to dump large quantities back on their customers who didn't want them,, so finally the merchants stopped accepting them in quantity either. So the net result was a great slowing of commerce BECAUSE there were a lot of coins to use. Weird isn't it?

MrLee

Boy. Was MY references wrong. The story I posted was from the 2002 BLACKBOOK/Price Guide. Reading the above posts and info on the net, I see it's far more complicated then I thought.
I found this history on Flying Eagle at Mintproducts.com.History of Flying Eagle Cent on CoinSite
This is a piece by Richard Snow. History of Small Cents 1856 to 1909
I hope this will help. Sorry for the confusion.

Lee

Russ

<< <i>Can anyone think of other series that were around only briefly? >>



Two Cent pieces, 1864 to 1872 (and, 1873 proof only). Nearly 20 million minted in 1864, and gobbled up immediately by the public. The mint thought they had a major hit on their hands, only to see the demand (and the mintage) drop dramatically every year after - all the way down to only 65K in 1872.

Turned out that it wasn't that the coin was popular, it was just initially issued in the middle of a nationwide coin shortage during the Civil War.

Russ, NCNE

zenny

the "golden" dollar seems to be headed that way.....

tradedollarnut

Gobrecht dollar. Reeded edge halves. Twenty cent pieces.