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Feuchtwanger Cents were privately minted by Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger and were made of “German silver” which is an alloy containing no silver, but instead is a mix of copper, nickel, zinc and tin. Dr. Feuchtwanger produced these coins in 1837 in an attempt to convince Congress and the U.S. Mint to use his smaller cents made of German silver as a replacement for the more costly copper large cents. Although, Dr. Feuchtwanger’s design and composition were not adopted by the U.S. Government, small cents of a similar copper-nickel composition were introduced roughly twenty years later. Today, Feuchtwanger Cents are widely collected by collectors either as hard-times tokens (HT-268) or as the first U.S. small cent. For reference, the coin is found on page 408 of the 2015 edition of the Red Book of U.S. Coins.
There are 14 known varieties of the 1837 Feuchtwanger Cent. Some are extremely common and some are extremely rare. This example offered here has been graded by NGC MS63 and is the 6G die pairing. The 6G die pair is a Rarity-3 variety meaning that it is a slightly more scarce variety. The coin is pretty well struck and has decent luster for the grade. The piece is almost completely free of toning and is an attractive piece for the type. The coin is free of major hits and marks and only some light hairlines on the reverse only seen under a very close inspection could explain the relatively low mint state grade which has been assigned. A great looking mint state example of the Feuchtwanger Cent.
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