Indian Princess Patterns Type Set

Set Description

1870 & 1871 Longacre's Indian Princess Patterns>
(Click on Image to enlarge)

The Indian Princess is a John Longacre's design with Miss Liberty sitting on a globe wearing an Indian headdress with a spear in her right hand holding the LIBERTY CAP. I personally think this is one of the most dramatic depiction of a sitting Miss Liberty.

Longacre had died in 1869, however, his design were brought back to life by James Barber. Research by Cory Gillilland proved that the design was conceived by Longacre no later than 1852. She included sketches of Longacre's 1852 drawings in her "Bullion Coins: A Nineteenth Century Proposal," which was published in America's Gold Coinage, a collection of papers presented at the 1989 Coinage of the Americas Conference. Unfortunately, Longacre never lived to see any of the Indian Princess pattern coins.

The first of these patterns were dollars struck in 1870. These 1870 dated 1$ pieces were engraved with Longacre name /Signature in the field at the base believed to be there to honor Longacre’s work on this design and time at the mint.

Two (2) different Reverse themes were married with the obverse die … one being the spread wing eagle design used on the regular pieces of the year and a “STANDARD” silver design with the open agricultural wreath and the Denomination inside. It is interesting to note that like 1859 50 Cent patterns, this later die parings have no logical explanation as the piece is void of the our country “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”



In 1871 a full suite of patterns pieces from the 5 Cent piece though Dollars were developed and struck using the Princess Motif. 2 different obverses were used in1871 - one being similar to the 1870 Stars surrounding the seated Princess (without a Signature) and the 2nd one being a “STARLESS” Obverse however the initials J.B.L were retained. Each of these obverses were paired with each of the reverse designs (Spread Winged Eagle and “STANDARD”). Per USPATTERNS.COM sets were produced and sold by the mint that included each of the 5 different denominations in both Silver, Copper and Aluminum strikes.

there were other variations in the obverse as some dies showed 13 Stars on the flag behind Liberty and others displayed 22 Stars.

This registry set represents close to a complete type set of these different obverse and reverse dies for the full range of denominations ( 5C through 1$) but independent of metals.

Click below link to Return to Mania's Master Pattern Registry
Mania's US Patterns- WHAT U.S. COINAGE COULD HAVE BEEN

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Set Goals
Working to assemble both Liberty Seated with Stars and without stars on the obverse combined with the different denominations descriptions on the reverse. Many of these were sold by the mint in sets with the 5 denominations











Denomination type sets for the Indian Princess Series

HALF DIMES





DIMES





QUARTERS





HALF DOLLARS