Liberty head wearing an Indian feather hat. By numismatic legend, the facial features of the goddess Liberty on the obverse of the Indian Head cent were based on the features of Longacre's daughter Sarah; the tale runs that she was at the mint one day when she tried on the headdress of one of a number of Native Americans who were visiting, and her father sketched her. However, Sarah Longacre was 30 years old and married in 1858, not 12 as in the tale, and Longacre himself stated that the face was based on a statue of Venus in Philadelphia on loan from the Vatican. He did often sketch his elder daughter, and there are resemblances between the depictions of Sarah and the various representations of Liberty on his coins of the 1850s. Regardless of who posed for Longacre, the facial features of the "Indian" are essentially Caucasian, meaning that a white woman wears the headdress of a Native American man.

Towards the end of minting 1886 pennies a visible change in the design was adopted. Placement of the feathers in the headdress and how they relate to the lettering along the rim was redesigned.

Up until then the last feather of the headdress pointed between the "I" and "C" of America, known as Type I. The new design now points the last feather between the "C" and "A" of America creating the Type II variety.

Shield at the top, facial value in the middle. A knot ties the oak wreath and holds arrows.

Mintmark of San Francisco Mint (S) located below the wreath. Philadelphia Mint specimens struck without mint mark.