Last year I was at a coin show in Timonium in Maryland and I was looking for some coins in a bargain bin. I found some Indian head cents for my collection and I found something that you don't see everyday. I found a flying eagle cent and this is neat because it's such a rare coin to find especially in a bargain bin. The flying eagle cent is a very historically important coin because it was the first small cent coin in United States history. It was made because for one the large cent was too cumbersome and the second reason it was no longer profitable to the United states mint. Also the flying eagle cent was a very artistic coin for the age it was in. It was a very well designed coin but sadly it was only made for 3 years (from 1856 to 1858) and this is what makes it so rare. You don't see flying eagle cents that much because they are either  very expensive or destroyed by weathering or bad cleaning but the coin I found was a very cool piece. It was a 1857 in a vg condition. But the best part was that I got it for 15 dollars. This was a very good price and I happily bought it for my collection. This coin was important for lots of reasons and why it is so important to coinage history and United states history.  The designer was named James B Longacre and he made the flying eagle cent for the United states  government and their program of new coinage. The flying eagle cent is a unique coin because of the small size and the new design on the coin. It was the first coin with an oak leaf  wreath  on the reverse and this coin helped design the Indian head cent that is one of the most famous cents in united states history and has paved the way for future coin designs like the like the  Indian head cent wheat cent or the steel cent or the memorial cent and the shield cent. You might think that these coins have nothing in common other than the wheat steel memorial and shield cent having Lincoln on the obverse of the coins but they all have one thing in common. Well actually two except for the shield cent is that all the cents were the same size and that they were made out of a copper zinc mix. These are too things that have made modern coinage what it is today and how modern cents were all designed because of the flying eagle cent.