CU-1c-1865-01 Cud

Description

The first documented cud for the 1865 Indian Head Cent in the Fancy 5 date logotype, CU-1c-1865-01 records a rim die break on a coin struck during a watershed year in American numismatics. The year 1865 marked the transition from copper-nickel to bronze composition for Indian Head Cents — a change to 95% copper with 5% tin and zinc that would define the series through its final issue in 1909. It was also the year the Civil War ended, and postwar production ramped up to replace the coins that had been hoarded during the conflict. The Fancy 5 date variety features a more ornate, curved numeral 5 in the date, distinguished from the Plain 5 by its flowing, serif-rich form — a difference resulting from two distinct date logotype punches used at the Philadelphia Mint that year. Cuds form when a section of the die rim fractures and falls away, leaving a void in the die that produces a flat, unstruck shelf of metal on the coin's edge. On an 1865 bronze cent designed by James Barton Longacre, with Liberty wearing a Native American headdress, a rim break at any clock position intersects with the coin's distinctive border of pearls or the wreath and shield reverse design elements.

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