1857 Flying Eagle, Snow-16

I didn't even consider that the "dig" might be a planchet defect. I'm not really experienced enough to make a definitive judgement on that. I'm not seeing any indication of a raised area around the mark, which I would expect to see if somethin dug into the coin.

The sellers picture had a lot of strong light shining across the coin giving it a kind of pinkish red color. I figured it had been cleaned, but the picture was clear enough to see that there weren't any hairlines. I thought worse case I could let it sit on a windowsill until it retoned. My take was that it was a VF20, Snow-16, probably cleaned, & that I couldn't go wrong for the price.

I don't think it's quite as nice as the one I got in August at the Atlanta Coin Show:

Since I bought the one in August & you clued me in to the snow number I have kept my eye out for these. It's one of the few varities I can tell with any degree of reliability. I'm hoping my other half will get me the Flying Eagle & Indian cent attribution guide so I can try to cherry pick some other varieties.

It looks like I might get a little side tracked from my goal of finishing my 7070. Hopefully I'll be able to cherry pick & trade my way into a small collection of the Flying Eagle cent varities without totally breaking the bank.

I've heard of both of these, & have been keeping an eye out for the overdate without any luck. I've got Rick Snows picture of one on my desktop for reference.

Thanks for the details on the 1857 obverse type of 1856. I knew about the rectangular O, but not the other markers. I haven't seriously been looking for the 57 obv type of 56 because I'm not confident I'd recognize the rectangular O. I hope the wife comes through with Snows guide for Xmas, if not I'll be buying a copy the 1st of the year.