How Far Back Can We Go? - CRH Edition! We Need -1872-

@Heavy-Metal, are you there?

I might have the 1896 Indian cent. I'll have to check when I get home around 3am.

My 1896. Heavymetal, I noticed the 3rd digit of your 1896 almost looks like an 8. Is that some type of overstrike or is that normal for that year?

woo hoo! 1895 starts in 14 minutes

Unless I find some more coins from the 19th century, I have nothing earlier to post in this thread! Good luck, everyone!

It's just the type of font they used back then. Here's a pic from USA Coinbook that shows a mint condition date.



Now here's a closeup of the date of my 1896 IH coin (which I just realized is on a different flash drive I left at home! I'll insert it later).

Edited for inserted coin:

You can see how flattened the date is, still a nice coin for its age.

Considering the font style used and decades in the wild, the date eventually flattens out a bit, gets "smushed" (this term seems to be missing from the Numismatic Glossary!). Plus, consider that back in 1896 it probably cost about 3 cents for a loaf of bread from the baker. So that penny got used a lot! No plastic in the wallet, paper currency maybe but everyone carried coins - which actually had value back then! Amazing that after 120 yrs a coin can still look so good!

One of my all time favorite fonts is the 1967 Lincoln Cent. Thick but not too thick, very pleasing to the eye while in 1969 the font was now pencil thin. I collect some coins based on how much I like the font used. Note the font for the date of this 1896 Morgan:





Close to/same as the 1896 IH font but the coin is less traveled so everything looks crisper. Now back to our regularly scheduled 1895 coin expo.

Nice folks!! We are in the stingy dates but still making progress. Pretty cool people!

yah you guys are amazing. keep it up! thanks so much for your efforts :-D I love this thread hahah