Mark,
Officially there were no Silver Indian Head Cents issued by the U.S. Mint. My first guess would be that someone silver plated one but that doesn't mean the U.S. Mint didn't have an accident. This happens at times when the wrong planchet gets mixed in and in this case it could be a dime planchet as it was the only silver coin small enough to match the cent (I believe there is 1 1900 specimen out there).
Couple of checks here. You can e-mail me the photo at moc.oohay|cole_drol#moc.oohay|cole_drol and I'll post accordingly. Second try weighing the coin, a silver dime weighs approximately 2.5 grams while a cent weighs 3.11 grams. If close to the silver weight you might have something.
Another check to do is look at the legends. A cent is about 1mm larger than a dime so look at how far away the legend is away from the edge in comparison to a regular Indian Head Cent.
If this thing passes some basic tests you may want to take the chance and spend a few dollars to get it verified by a third party grading service. Might be getting ahead of ourselves here but here's hoping.
Regards,
Ken
Mark (guest) 03 Oct 2009 02:25
