Warning: Please do not bid on this item if you are not going to follow through with the payment. The auction will be canceled after 4 days and non payers will be given negative feedback. We are trying to raise money for my brother's grandchildren. He passed away last year.

Coin Type: 1909-S Indian Head Penny

Rating: NGC FN 15

Color: BN (Brown)

NGC Number: 1286026-001

Circulation: Circulated

Mint Location: San Francisco

Composition: 95% Copper

Mintage: 309,000

Shipping: First Class Mail

Comments: This is a  beautiful coin. U.S. Buyers Only. Priced below the recommended value.

Background:

Designed by James Barton Longacre. The 1909-S Indian Head cent is a semi-key coin that also represents one of the last issues of the iconic one-cent coin series that began in 1859 and ended in 1909. After being struck exclusively at the Philadelphia Mint since its inception, Indian Head cents were finally issued by a branch mint beginning in 1908, when the San Francisco Mint picked up production of the small copper coin. Like its 1908-S counterpart, the 1909-S Indian Head cent is much scarcer than most of the later Philadelphia issues and both are considered semi-key coins for the series.

However, of the two San Francisco-produced Indian Head cents, the 1909 is significantly scarcer than the 1908.

A comparison of mintages for the two coins shows 1,115,000 examples of the 1908-S versus just 309,000 of the 1909-S Indian Head cent. In fact, the 1909-S has an even lower mintage than the series key date, the famous 1877 Indian Head. The 1877 and 1909-S Indian Head “pennies” are the only two regular-issue cents in the entire series to have mintages lower than one million coins.

Production of the 1909-S Indian Head cent ended early in 1909 when the series was replaced by the Lincoln cent. Even more than a century after Indian Head cent production came to an end, the series remains a popular collectible–in part because there are less than 60 different, commonly collected regular-issue coins in the series, including major varieties and the two aforementioned branch-mint coins. It also helps budget-conscious collectors that there are relatively few high-priced keys in the Indian Head cent series.

The San Francisco Mint cents of 1909 had the lowest production of any currency issue in the Indian Head series. Production ceased early in the year and was not resumed before the new Lincoln Cent dies were ready in early summer.

This is also the rarest Indian Head Cent year/mint produced in terms of the total mintage figures.