1858 Flying Eagle Cent - Small Letters - RCD-1c-1858-01 Retained Cud

Description

Cataloged by Cuds on Coins, RCD-1c-1858-01 records a die rim failure on an 1858 Flying Eagle cent with the Small Letters obverse. The Flying Eagle cent, designed by James B. Longacre and produced from 1857 to 1858 (with limited 1856 pattern strikings), inaugurated the small cent era in American coinage — replacing the large copper cents that had been produced since 1793 with a smaller, lighter coin that used a copper-nickel alloy. The "Small Letters" designation refers to the obverse lettering: the letters AM of AMERICA stand apart, as they do on this coin, while on the Large Letters they touch. Philadelphia struck approximately 24.6 million Flying Eagle cents in 1858, the denomination's final year before it was replaced by James B. Longacre's Indian Head cent design in 1859. The copper-nickel composition (88% copper, 12% nickel) was harder than the pure copper used for large cents, creating greater die stress during production and contributing to the die failure that this retained cud documents. The retained cud mechanism — rim fracture without separation of the broken fragment — produces a raised displacement along the rim with the crack boundary preserved as a visible line on struck coins. Cuds on Coins lists no cross-reference for it.

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