Rusty Goe: Having put the striking of dimes on hold in its maiden year of 1870, the Carson Mint added this denomination to its staple output in 1871. This would be the lowest unit of value issued at the Nevada coin factory. The San Francisco Mint had delivered silver half dimes annually beginning in 1863 (discontinued after 1873), but no three-cent, two-cent, one-cent, or half-cent pieces had regularly circulated in the Pacific states. The economic environment in Carson City and its surrounding regions found little use for denominations smaller than ten cents.

Coiner Granville Hosmer delivered the first 6,400 1871-CC dimes in February of that year. This began a four-year run during which the Carson City Mint produced five of the most significant date-denomination combinations (two major subtypes in 1873) in the U.S. Seated dime series.

More than half of the 1871-CC dimes offered by auction companies over the past 25 years have been damaged, for which PCGS and NGC would not assign numeric grades. Even the quantities recorded in auction results for these problem-pieces are misleading, because many of the coins are recycled routinely, which inflates the aggregate catalog appearances.

Q. David Bowers: Although 20,100 1871-CC dimes were minted, relatively few survive today. Rusty Goe estimates a population of only 70 to 100 pieces. Only a few of these, possibly even not enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand, can be truly called Mint State. The vast majority are quite worn, with Fine and Very Fine being about par, often with a porous or etched surface (this also being characteristic of Carson City dimes of the next two years).

The reason for the elusive nature of the 1871-CC in any grade is that numismatic interest in them at the time was nil, the dimes were placed into general circulation, and by the time anyone paid notice -- years later after the 1893 publication of Augustus G. Heaton's A Treatise on Mint Marks -- the opportunity to acquire high grade examples was lost.

In his informative book, The Complete Guide to Liberty Seated Dimes, Brian Greer notes concerning this variety: "A very scarce date that is one of the keys to the series. Slightly tougher than the 1873-CC [With Arrows] in Good to Very Fine grades, but slightly more available EF or better. Problem-free examples are rare. Excessively rare in Mint State."

The same writer states that the edge reeding on this issue is more widely spaced, meaning a lower count, than on dimes of the other two mints. Relative to the often seen porosity, Greer seconds the conventional wisdom that this particular issue is "often with damaged or porous surfaces."

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the August 2012 Battle Born Collection of Carson City Coinage, where it realized $99,875.