Set report · United States · Half Cents & Cents
Flying Eagle Cent: Who Owns What
How often each Flying Eagle Cent coin actually turns up in a collection, measured by how many of the 1,234 collectors of this set have one. Coins are graded from Common to Extremely scarce against the set's most-owned coin — a measure of collecting frequency, not of how many survive.
Hardest to find in real collections
The five least-owned coins of the set — ownership counts are collector-reported.
…and the ones everybody has
Full set: ownership & rarity, coin by coin
Values by grade for each of these live on the Flying Eagle Cent catalog pages and the full price guide.
| Coin | Mintage | Collectors | % of set collectors | How often collected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1856 | — | 2 | 0.2% | Extremely scarce |
| 1856 (Proof) | 1,250 | 32 | 2.6% | Extremely scarce |
| 1856 (Variety) | 1,250 | 43 | 3.5% | Extremely scarce |
| 1857 | 17,450,000 | 1,102 | 89.3% | Common |
| 1857 (Proof) | 100 | 28 | 2.3% | Extremely scarce |
| 1858 | — | 37 | 3% | Extremely scarce |
| 1858 Large Letters | — | 856 | 69.4% | Common |
| 1858 Small Letters | 24,600,000 | 905 | 73.3% | Common |
| 1858 8 7 (Error) | — | 24 | 1.9% | Extremely scarce |
| 1858 Large Letters (Proof) | — | 32 | 2.6% | Extremely scarce |
| 1858 Small Letters (Proof) | — | 31 | 2.5% | Extremely scarce |
- Common
- Uncommon
- Scarce
- Very scarce
- Extremely scarce
Based on the share of this set's collectors who own each coin — how often it turns up in a collection, not how many survive. Not the Sheldon rarity scale.
About these numbers
Ownership counts come from the same live per-coin counters shown across the LuckyCoin catalog; set-level collector counts come from the annual full-collection scan behind The State of Coin Collecting 2026. Counts are collector-reported and aggregate-only. Scarcity tiers come from 100 × (1 − owners ÷ owners of the set's most-owned coin): Common under 25, Uncommon 25–49, Scarce 50–74, Very scarce 75–89, Extremely scarce 90+. This reflects how often a coin is collected, not its surviving population — it is not the Sheldon rarity scale. CC BY 4.0 with attribution.