1860 1C Indian Head Cent, Copper-Nickel PCGS MS66 (CAC)

This beautiful Premium Gem is fully struck and lustrous. Copper-nickel Indian cents—such as this offering from AUCM—are increasingly sought-after in higher grades as type coins, even though the most abundant issues are rare in Premium Gem condition. This high-end CAC coin stands apart from its peers with superb eye appeal and quality. PCGS has graded 59 as MS66 with 24 finer. In CAC, there are 28 in MS66 with just 4 finer.

James B. Longacre, who crafted the design of the Indian head cent. Photo: Wikipedia Commons.

Its design is quintessentially American. The obverse presents a young female head of Liberty, facing left, hair covering her neck, bedecked with an Indian headdress of eagle feathers. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA surrounds her at the rim, with the date at the bottom. The reverse features an oak wreath and Union shield with ONE CENT within the wreath.

Numismatic art scholar Cornelius Vermeule writes of this series, "the Indian Head cent [achieved] the blessing of popular appeal. The coin became perhaps the most beloved and typically American of any piece great or small in the American series. Great the coin was not, but it was one of the first products of the U.S. mints to achieve the common touch and to identify itself with the transitions from frontier to industrial to social expansion during its decades of circulation, from 1860 to 1930."