1903 Indian Head Cent Repunched Date FS-303 Snow-7

Description

Designated FS-303 in the Fivaz-Stanton Cherrypickers' Guide and cataloged as Snow-7 in J.P. Snow's attribution system, this 1903 Indian Head cent exhibits a repunched date variety where the flag (top serif) and base of the digit 1 show secondary impressions from an initial misplaced punch. The repunching is concentrated on the first digit, with the secondary impression visible at both the top and bottom of the 1, creating a diagnostic doubling effect identifiable under moderate magnification of approximately 5-8x. This is confirmed as a different die from the FS-304 variety, which shows the entire date shifted southeast rather than the localized repunching on the digit 1 documented here, demonstrating that multiple 1903 obverse dies received positional date punch errors at the Philadelphia Mint. The 1903 Indian Head cent was designed by James Barton Longacre and struck in a composition of 95% copper and 5% tin-and-zinc, weighing 3.11 grams with a diameter of 19.05 mm. The Philadelphia Mint produced approximately 85.1 million Indian Head cents in 1903, making it one of the higher-mintage years in the series (1859-1909). Repunched date varieties from the Indian Head cent series are actively collected because they document the pre-mechanical era of die preparation, when each working die received its date digits through individual hand punching — a labor-intensive process that produced a rich variety of positional errors. The concentration of misalignment on the digit 1 rather than across all four digits suggests the punch slipped or was repositioned after the initial blow affected only the first digit.

Attribution History

• FS-303, Snow-7