The 1875 Dot Cent: Did It Catch A U. S. Mint Crook?

PCGS - What's up with the unusual raised dot on the reverse of some 1875 Indian Head cents? That's the question many coin collectors have asked for decades. The little raised dot in question appears near the top left corner of the "N" in the word "ONE" on the reverse of the coin. This peculiar raised dot is visible on 1875 cents grading Fine or higher that were struck from one particular die, and its presence is something of a recent phenomenon. It was essentially unnoticed until recent years and only after the publication of an article by numismatic expert R.W. Julian, who wrote a neat story for the May 1972 issue of Numismatic Scrapbook profiling an intriguing story surrounding certain 1875 Indian Head cents.

As Julian's 1972 article and Richard Snow's Flying Eagle cent & Indian cent Attribution Guide, 3rd Edition, Volume 1 describe, a 76-year-old employee of the United States Mint in Philadelphia was suspected of stealing new coins right from inside the press room. The septuagenarian mint employee, George Mitchell, had been working for the United States Mint for more than 50 years and had served in the position of "helper." According to internal mint letters, some of the facility's top brass, including Coiner Archibald Loudon Snowden, believed Mitchell's actions were due more to progressing mental difficulties than any nefarious motivations to steal.



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