Indian Head Cent 1878 G-VG

The nation still reeled from the Panic of 1873, and in the year 1878, over 10,000 business would fail in the United States. This did not stop the American people and businesses from innovating. Thomas Edison continued to find cheaper and cheaper ways to transmit electricity. Proctor & Gamble invented lye soap, surprisingly it did take until 1878 to invent such a basic product of necessary hygiene. In addition to the economic slowdown, the country also faced disease epidemics. Yellow Fever and smallpox hit different regions of the US. At the very end of the year, the greenback legal tender dollar was on par with gold and silver. This was the perfect year to initiate one of the most collectible coins in United States history: the Morgan Silver Dollar.

The Indian Head cent continued to languish in low mintage figures, however, the Indian Cent continued to improve in quality. The US Mint only created under 6,000,000. This was due to the fact that the Mint was still redeeming old cents and rereleasing much of them back into circulation. Therefore, this year the actual amount of pennies released by the mint was closer to 14,000,000. This is not a particularly difficult year to find in well circulated grades, but because the issue was in circulation even in the 20th century, finding better grades has proven difficult.

Despite the low mint state mintage figure, the proof issue has a sizeable mintage, at over 2,000. It is difficult to find a specimen with a strong mirrored finish today though. There are three major varieties from this year. The first, as with almost all other years, up to this point is a repunched date. There are also a popular double die reverse variety and a misplaced date variety.

• Denomination: Cent
• Year: 1878
• Diameter: 19mm
• Mint Mark: N/A
• Thickness: 1.5mm
• Grade: Ungraded