Two Cent Pieces 1864-1873

The Civil War emptied the country of federal coins. People hoarded silver and gold, and by 1862 even the copper-nickel cent had vanished, leaving shopkeepers to make change with private tokens, many of them thin bronze pieces worth far less than a cent. Mint Director James Pollock noticed that those tokens circulated freely, and late in 1863 he proposed a bronze cent and a bronze two-cent piece. A two-cent coin let the Mint put more face value into circulation for the same press time.

The Coinage Act of 1864, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on April 22, 1864, authorized both coins in French bronze. It was also the first law to make base-metal coins legal tender, up to ten pieces at a time.

The new coin carried a new motto. In 1861 the Reverend Mark R. Watkinson had asked Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase to recognize God on the coinage, and Chase told the Mint to prepare a suitable motto. Pollock's patterns tried "God Our Trust", and Chase asked that the shield design read IN GOD WE TRUST instead. The 1864 act let the Mint Director, with the Secretary's approval, set the mottoes, so the two-cent piece became the first United States coin to bear the phrase. A law of March 3, 1865 extended it to every coin large enough to carry it.

The coin was welcomed at first, but its moment passed quickly. The copper-nickel three-cent piece arrived in 1865 and the five-cent nickel in 1866, and the two-cent mintage fell every year after 1864. Surplus coins could not be redeemed until a law of March 3, 1871 allowed it in lots of $20. The 1872 circulation mintage was just 65,000, and the Mint Act of February 12, 1873 abolished the denomination. About 17 million of the roughly 45.6 million issued had been redeemed and recoined into cents by 1909.

Obverse. A shield with crossed arrows behind it and a laurel branch on each side, adapted from the Great Seal. IN GOD WE TRUST runs on a scroll above the shield, and the date is below.

Reverse. 2 CENTS inside a wheat wreath, with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA around the edge.

Mint mark. None. Every two-cent piece was struck at Philadelphia.

Small Motto and Large Motto (1864). The earliest 1864 coins were struck from a prototype obverse whose motto letters were smaller. CoinWeek's checks: a smaller D in GOD on the Small Motto, the first T of TRUST closer to the ribbon fold on the Large Motto, and a stem visible under GOD on the Small Motto only. Wear on the motto makes this harder on circulated coins.

Plain 5 and Fancy 5 (1865). The 1865 date was punched in two styles, one with a plain 5 and one with a fancy 5 whose flag curves sharply. The same date styles appear on the cent of that year.

• 1864 Small Motto: a few thousand struck for circulation from the prototype die before the Large Motto took over. Proofs are few; NGC puts the survivors at about a dozen (Small Motto proof).
• 1864 Large Motto: the Mint's figure for the year is 19,847,500, which R. W. Julian argues is 25,000 too high; the Guide Book now uses his 19,822,500. A reverse die that clashed with an Indian Head cent obverse is listed by MadDieClashes as MUDC-2C-1864-01. The Large Motto proofs are estimated at 100, and NGC notes restrikes made a few years later.
• 1865: 13,640,000 struck, in Plain 5 and Fancy 5 date styles. All of the estimated 500 proofs have the Plain 5.
• 1867 doubled die obverse: strong doubling on the motto and the arrows. The year's mintage was 2,938,750.
• 1872: 65,000 struck for circulation, and NGC thinks some were still in the Mint's vaults when the coin was abolished and were melted. The proofs are estimated at 950.
• 1873 Closed 3 and Open 3: proofs only. NGC's reconstruction is 600 Closed 3 and 500 Open 3, and it calls the numbers tentative. The Open 3 date style was only ordered after a complaint of January 18, 1873, weeks before the coin was abolished, and Breen believed those pieces were struck later.

• Composition: 95% copper, 5% tin and zinc (bronze). Two-cent pieces contain no silver.
• Weight: 6.22 grams
• Diameter: 23 mm
• Edge: plain

The specification never changed from 1864 to 1873.