Oh, no, Uncle! Not the dreaded hole. There is a hole in your coin? That renders it valueless.

Most Americans do not know that we had two cent pieces back in the time of the Civil War. We also had three cent pieces and twenty cent pieces. These soon gave way to the denominations we have today.

Perhaps a young soldier carried your two cent piece in his pocket as he marched off to war. Those were trying times. In fact, the two cent piece is the first US coin to carry the motto In God We Trust. It was affixed to our coinage in response to the tortuous, but necessary days of the Civil War. There was no other way to get rid of slavery.

With one firm exception, most dates of two cent pieces carry about the same catalog value, as follows:

worn: $15 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $25
well preserved: $35
fully uncirculated: $90

Two cent pieces dated after 1869 are more rare and the catalog values are about twice those shown above. The 1872 date is the firm exception.

2 CENT PIECE DATED 1872:
worn: $335
average circulated: $730
well preserved: $925
fully uncirculated: $2500

Be sure to correctly interpret the catalog values shown on this page. They are inflated values. Use our Important Terminology page (link at upper left) to understand the difference between catalog value and actual buy and sell values.

In addition to the values shown above, there are a few special twists with this neat coin. If you have a coin dated 1864, 1869, or 1873, seek out a knowledgeable collector or a coin dealer for an in-person appraisal. You might, for instance, have an 1864 'small motto' coin worth $400 when in average circulated condition. Such nuances are beyond the reach of a general-purpose resource such as CoinQuest.