Indian Head Cent 1872 G-VG

Horses, something seldom thought of today, cause a huge panic in 1872. The Great Epizootic of 1872, a virus, killed over four million horses. This caused commerce to stop and fires in cities to rage for longer as horses carried more than just people, but also steam fire engines. The death of these horses is even thought to be a factor in the Panic of 1873 the very next year. Later in the year, Susan B. Anthony and other suffragists were arrested for trying to vote in this year’s presidential elections.

Another slow year for mintages figures of the Indian Head cent, in 1872 just over four million cents were minted. To make matters worse for collectors, much of this year’s issues were of inconsistent quality in terms of alloy mixes and die quality. Like the Indian Head cent of 1871, a small amount of those minted in 1872 were struck with the Shallow N. Also like the previous year, many of the newly struck coins were sent back to the mint for melting. This could happen when a bank would have a shipment of pennies ready for melting and people would bring new pennies. These pennies would just be added to the shipment ready to go out. Because of this, most 1872 Indian Head cents surviving today are in poor condition.

The proof issues this year are much easier to find than that of other years. In many cases, collectors may have proof issues from this year that are cheaper than its mint state counterpart. A few popular varieties are noted from this year. Notably, there were three different Shallow N dies used. There are, as with other years, many repunched date varieties. The D in “United States” began to deteriorate creating what is now called a “broken D”, however this mint error does not bring in any more money, an interesting variety nonetheless.

• Denomination: Cent
• Year: 1872
• Diameter: 19mm
• Mint Mark: N/A
• Thickness: 1.5mm
• Grade: Ungraded