1892 Indian Head Cent Repunched Date FS-302 Snow-1

Description

Designated FS-302 in the Fivaz-Stanton Cherrypickers' Guide and cataloged as Snow-1 in J.P. Snow's attribution system, this 1892 Indian Head cent exhibits a repunched date variety where the original digits 8 and 9 were initially punched north of their final date position. The northward shift of these two digits is visible upon careful examination under moderate magnification, revealing secondary impressions above the primary placement that betray the misalignment of the date logotype during die preparation. This is a distinct die from the FS-301 variety, which shows an eastward shift of the digits 8 and 2 rather than the northward displacement documented here, confirming that multiple 1892 obverse dies received incorrectly positioned date punches at the Philadelphia Mint. The 1892 Indian Head cent was designed by James Barton Longacre and struck in a composition of 95% copper and 5% tin-and-zinc, weighing 3.11 grams with a diameter of 19.05 mm. Produced during the Gilded Age, this issue falls within the later years of the Indian Head series (1859-1909), when the Philadelphia Mint was the sole production facility for cents. Repunched date varieties from this era reflect the manual die-making process in which individual date digits were hand-punched into working dies, a technique inherently susceptible to positional errors. The existence of at least two distinct repunched date dies for the 1892 issue suggests either a systemic issue with the date punch tooling that year or simply the statistical inevitability of occasional misalignment across the many dies required for a mintage exceeding 37 million coins.

Attribution History

• FS-302, Snow-1