Little things mean a lot, so they say. They certainly meant a lot to the coin collecting hobby in 1960, when a minor minting quirk in the humblest U.S. coin resulted in an all-out market boom. The quirk in question was, of course, the creation of the so-called "small-date" and "large-date" Lincoln cent varieties. More, perhaps, than any other single factor, that was the match that lit the coin market's fuse, triggering the proof-set and roll-buying craze of the early Sixties.

The frantic chase that followed wasn't an unalloyed blessing. The roll binge roiled the waters of traditional collecting by whipping up a speculative froth. It also set the stage for the subsequent -- and all too inevitable -- market collapse, when the whole house of cards, built on a foundation of greed, tumbled down along with its hall of mirrors.

Still, the episode had some positive aspects, as well. Thousands of new collectors were attracted to the hobby by all the attendant publicity, and many former collectors were lured back into the fold. Indeed, I myself was among the latter. And many of those recruits continued their involvement during the leaner years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, thus providing the market with a broader, firmer base from which to launch the eventual great leap forward.

There was no indication at the start of 1960 that the 1960 cent -- a coin so unremarkable in appearance -- would soon be unmasked as an "instant rarity." It took several months before that realization started to dawn.

You have to keep in mind that all by itself, the '60 small-date cent was, indeed, an unremarkable coin. The date wasn't so small that it caused an immediate clamor - and even if that had been true, the coin would still have been common if every single piece had looked the same. The fact is, no one knew that we had a small-date cent until the large-date version arrived on the scene, giving us a basis for comparison. And that didn't happen until the spring.

I don't mean to suggest that everything was normal concerning the small-date cent's production, distribution and the like. Actually, its mintage was unusually low, and its distribution limited, considering that it was, so to speak, the one-cent piece of record for the first two months of the year.

This was particularly true at the Philadelphia Mint, where only about 2 million cents were produced during January and February 1960 -- all of them on a single day in January. Production was considerably higher in Denver, where approximately 100 million cents were made during that period. Evidently, the Mint still had substantial inventories on hand from the year before, when the two mints had cranked out a combined total of nearly 2 billion cents -- a near-record figure for that era. In 1959, the Mint had introduced the new reverse design featuring the Lincoln Memorial, and that may help account for the higher-than-usual output.

In any event, the cent's low early mintage didn't draw much notice during the first few months of 1960. What did attract attention was the unexpected appearance of a new cent variety --- one whose date had distinctly larger numerals -- during the early spring. It turned out that in March, when the Mint began producing massive new quantities of cents, the coins were being struck with new and different dies. Thus was born the large-date cent -- and, with that development, the small-date cent came to be recognized as such.

By itself, the existence of two such varieties wouldn't have triggered the market boom that followed -- that is, if both varieties had been common and easy to find. It soon became apparent, though, that small-date examples were very scarce. It also became apparent that no more small-date cents were being struck, for shipments produced in March and thereafter consisted exclusively of large-date specimens.

The Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine published its first two letters regarding these major new finds in the issue dated May 20, 1960.

"I think I am first in finding a definite variety in the 1960 coinage," wrote one of the correspondents, a reader from Yonkers, N.Y.

"In all of the proof sets of 1960 that I have examined, the date is of the small variety," he reported. "In the regular coinage, uncirculated and from change, all of the 1960-P cents I have encountered are of the large-date variety.

"The difference in date size is quite obvious with the naked eye and even more so under a glass," he concluded.

The other reader stated that while he had found D-mint cents of both varieties, "the Philadelphia coinage is all of the large date variety" -- indicating that he, like everyone else, had had little or no success in locating the much scarcer P-mint pieces.

Between them, these letters suggest that for many hobbyists it was the proof cent, not the business-strike example that provided the first physical evidence of a small-date coin from Philadelphia. (In those days, of course, proof sets were being made at the mother mint -- and, like all Philly coins from that period, their origin was designated not by a mint mark, but rather by the absence of any such mark.)

The appearance of small-date cents in the first 1960 proof sets was a highly significant development. Commercially, it served to reinforce the surge that was then developing in the market. And, from researchers' standpoint, it provided important clues regarding the relative scarcity of the small- and large-date cents as a whole.

In all, the Philly Mint struck 588 million cents in 1960, so those 2 million small-date pieces (assuming that this figure is correct) account for barely one-third of 1 percent of the total mintage. In Denver, cent production totaled slightly less than 1.6 billion, so the 100 million small-date examples accounted for roughly one-half of 1 percent. There were just under 1.7 million 1960 proof sets, and it's estimated that only about 65,000 -- those produced early in the year -- contained the small-date cents.

The Numismatic Scrapbook sought to obtain an official explanation, and did get a statement from Mint Director William H. Brett. It may have been well-intentioned -- but, in retrospect, it clearly was erroneous.

"All U.S. one-cent [1960] production stamping dies were forged from the same master hub containing the 1960 date element," Brett told the editor. "No change was made."

Plainly, that wasn't the case. Until quite recently, what really did happen wasn't clear. Some theorized that the Mint had stopped production, and retooled the dies, because one or more numbers in the date had gotten clogged. Others suggested that hanky-panky was involved -- that larcenous Mint employees had engineered the switch for private gain.

The actual facts were quite different, according to Frank Gasparro, a man who was in a good position to know. Prior to retiring in 1981, Gasparro had worked at the Philadelphia Mint for nearly 40 years -- the last 16 as chief sculptor-engraver. Thus, in 1960, as a Mint staff engraver, he witnessed firsthand the circumstances leading to creation of the two distinct varieties.

Gasparro has been a good friend of mine for many years -- and some years ago, following his retirement from the Mint, he shared with me some insights concerning what took place in 1960. At the start of each year, he pointed out, Mint technicians follow a series of procedures in readying new dies for the various coins, and the first step in this sequence, for each and every coin, is to take the master hub and prepare a master die.

For those who are not of a technical bent, perhaps I should explain that dies are prepared from master dies -- and these, in turn, are made from pieces of metal called hubs. A hub bears the design exactly as it will appear on the coin itself; a die, by contrast, bears a mirror image of the design, and the cycle is then completed -- and the image restored to original form -- when a coin is struck with the die.

At the start of 1960, a Mint engraver -- following normal procedures -- took out the master cent hub, which then was dated 1959; removed the "5" and "9" from the previous year's date; and made a master die from the master hub. At that point, the master die, likewise made of steel, carried only the first two numbers -- in other words, "19" -- from the date. The engraver then added a "6" and a "0," cutting the numbers into the metal by hand. This master die then was used to make a working hub -- and the hub, in turn, was used to make working dies.

According to Gasparro, there wasn't any problem with clogging. Early in the year, though, the working hub cracked while it was being used to produce more working dies. That made it necessary to pull out the master die and make a new working hub -- and at that crucial point, an error of omission came into play.

Normally, Gasparro said, Mint technicians would have prepared a second master die -- a backup, so to speak -- from the working hub. In 1960, though, because of production pressures, they had failed to take this step. Thus, they had no choice but to use the original master die. And, because the "6" and "0" had been cut into that master die by hand, they had to sharpen those numbers before they could use it again.

"When you make a master die from the actual hub you're using, you can then make hundreds of hubs from that master die," Gasparro explained. "But this time we didn't have a master die from the hub that cracked; we only had one master die with the lettering cut in by hand. And when you make a hub from that, you have to clean it up.

"No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot duplicate every little detail under these conditions. You can put the dies side by side like twins and still they're not the same.

"It so happened that the numerals on the second hub were larger; we didn't clean them down enough. Also, the steel spread in the area of the date; it wasn't contained the way it had been on the first hub. The second time, everything came up sharper and therefore fatter."

The discovery of the two cent varieties, and reports on the scarcity of the small date version, got extensive coverage in the news media -- and that, in turn, helped attract many new collectors to the hobby.

The appeal of the small-date cents stemmed, in large part, from their obvious nature. The differences between the small- and large-date varieties are apparent at a glance -- especially in the "6," which has a much shorter stem in the small-date version.

As interest soared, so did the value of the much sought after cents. Before long, the P-mint small dates were rising so quickly that most dealers didn't even price them in their ads, carrying instead the simple, revealing notation "POR" ("price on request").

Boosted by the interest in rolls of small-date cents, coin rolls in general "took off." For the next five years, in fact, uncirculated rolls were the single hottest area in the whole coin market, with Lincoln cent rolls leading the way.

Within a few years, P-Mint small date cents skyrocketed to more than $400 per roll --- nearly $10 per coin. At that point, the Denver small dates were bringing nearly $20 per roll.

But, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. The roll market crashed in the mid-1960s and the small-date cents, having risen more spectacularly than most other coins, plunged more spectacularly, too.

Since then, their price has never again approached those earlier heights. Today, a roll of mint-state 1960-P small dates can be purchased for well under $100, while the D-mint variety is priced at just a couple of dollars per roll.

Having devoted hundreds of hours to looking through rolls of cents in the early 1960s, I can personally attest to the P-mint small date's scarcity. In all my determined searching, within a short time of the coins' release, I turned up only one example. By comparison, I found dozens of specimens of key and semi-key Lincolns from earlier years -- including a 1914-D.

This, of course, may simply mean that virtually all the coins were saved in mint condition -- set aside at once in rolls and bags. Still, I think it indicates that the mintage was very low, and the 2-million estimate may be right.

At $400 per roll, the coins, without a doubt, were overpriced. At less than $100, though, I can't help but think they're currently priced too low -- especially after the passage of nearly 40 years. Whatever the price, the small-date cent remains a coin of great interest to me on a personal level. And, I think, it also must be viewed as a coin of major import in the history of modern numismatics.

That "silly millimeter" of difference in the date helped gain the hobby miles of free publicity, and helped pave the way for the bigger, broader market we know today.

There's just no question about it: The small-date cent was truly a big, big coin.