Jeff Ambio: As with the other rare, key date Carson City Mint quarter issues dated 1870 to 1873, the 1873-CC Arrows was struck from a single pair of dies. The reverse is the same that the Mint used to strike all known 1870-CC, 1871-CC and 1872-CC quarters, but it is different from that used for the 1873-CC No Arrows issue.

Rusty Goe: Residents of Carson City had eagerly anticipated the Coinage Act of 1873 taking effect on Tuesday April 1. The Carson Daily Appeal on April 2, 1873, proudly proclaimed why the occasion meant so much to the locals: "THE CARSON MINT -- that's what it is now -- no 'Branch' institution anymore, but a Mint, standing on its own indubitable bottom...." This made reference to the new section of the Coinage Act that empowered all U.S. mints with full "mint" status, no longer designated as branches of the main U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. The elevation in stature sounded good in theory, but held little authority in practice, as people who mattered in other parts of the country would still refer to the Carson Mint as a branch throughout its existence.

On the streets of Carson City in spring 1873, the mint in the midst was to the locals a place of pride. The Daily Appeal correspondent who had announced the shedding of the term branch also shared his experience of touring the Carson Mint on that first day of April.

He marveled at the 57 3,000-ounce silver bars piled up, "each with an average value of $3,500 -- say $200,000 worth." As he pried "around a little further" he entered "the Treasurer's safe," and saw "stacks and bags of coin amounting to not less than a quarter of a million [dollars]," which he called "clean rhino," borrowing the British slang term for money, derived from the Greek prefix "rhino," translated as "nose." The Brits apparently referred to using hard cash in transactions as "paying through the nose."

The Carsonite journalists praised the men in charge at the mint. The writer who covered the April 1 story referred to Superintendent Henry F. Rice as "Deacon" Rice, and declared that no other mint existed "where the work is better systematized."

The mint workers adjusted to the changes innovated by the Coinage Act. They received new dies to make coins with arrowheads on either side of the date and they studied the requirements for the slightly increased weight in each piece.

Although the reporter who wrote the Appeal's April 1 article stated there was "little danger of the Deacon's [Superintendent Rice] being disturbed," a shakeup in late spring 1873 caught everyone by surprise. Superintendent Rice resigned and a new coiner and a new melter-refiner replaced the previous holders of those positions.

During the third week of June, the Appeal reported that the new coiner, William "Hy" Doane, scheduled to replace Coiner Chauncey N. Noteware in July, stopped in at the mint to examine "the workings of the department of which he is soon to take charge." Apparently, about this same time, Coiner Noteware delivered the first 4,000 1873 quarters with arrowheads on either side of the date.

By July, after the personnel changes had taken place, and after June cleanup and an inspection of the books by a Bureau of the Mint official, business resumed as usual. A reporter wrote, in the July 23, 1873 Appeal, that on the previous day the mint had turned out the first trade dollars west of Philadelphia -- 4,500 pieces in all. The correspondent reported that $4,000 in quarters had rattled off the coin press on that same day. These would have been the new "With Arrows" variety. The Appeal man must have gotten his totals mixed up however, because $4,000 face value in quarters would have equaled 16,000 pieces. Yet, records show that the new coiner Doane delivered only 8,962 of these new-style quarters between July and December 1873, which, added to Noteware's 4,000-piece run in June, brought the total of the "With Arrows" subtype for the year to 12,462.

Those quarter dollars from 1873, with the arrowheads, while not as scarce as their old-style counterparts, earned great respect from collectors carrying forth into the 20th century and later into the 21st.

Q. David Bowers: In contrast to its predecessor, the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, this with-arrows variety is collectible today in circulated grades, although by any standard it is a rarity. Rusty Goe in his careful study of Carson City issues estimated that just 45 to 60 exist all told, of which just two or three deserve the designation of Mint State, and only five or six as nice as EF or AU.

The entire mintage was struck in June and July of 1873 and in contrast to the earlier version was probably all distributed at the time and went into local and regional commerce. As was true of other issues of the era, CC coins were not noticed by numismatists, and even the Mint Cabinet collected United States issues by date and was satisfied with Proofs. All of this seems strange to recount today.

After the passage of the Mintage Act of April 12, 1873, arrows were added to the date of certain silver denominations, namely the dime, quarter and half dollar. At the Carson City Mint production of these denominations was halted for four months until new obverse dies arrived with the appropriate obverse configuration. It was popular in later years to call this the Crime of 1873.

The facts are somewhat different. John Jay Knox, an accomplished numismatist by the way, crafted the Act of February 12, 1873, taking into consideration the current monetary system. The two-cent piece, launched in 1864, was dwindling in popularity and was scarcely used. It was discontinued. The silver trime, not in circulation since spring 1862, was likewise dropped, as was the half dime. At the time the nickel three-cent piece and nickel five-cent piece served nicely, and silver coins were absent from circulation in the East and Midwest. The weights of the dime, quarter, and half dollar were increased very slightly to have the numbers come out even in the metric system.

To mark the change arrowheads were placed at the date. The silver dollar of 412.5 grains was discontinued, seemingly for all time. In its place was the silver trade dollar of 420 grains, intended for use in export trade to China. It was anticipated that large amounts of silver would be used in producing these. The coins were legal tender for face value and, accordingly, they also served nicely in place of the silver dollar in circulation in the West. The bill was carefully passed around among senators and representatives and was passed without dissention.

Several years later, Western mining interests came to the realization that as silver dollars were no longer being minted, this represented a loss for silver sales to the Mint. The production of trade dollars did not make up the difference in expectations. As of July 22, 1876, the legal tender status of the trade dollar was repealed, and subsequent issues all went to China, none circulating domestically at par. A great hue and cry arose, senators and representatives said that they were misled and simply didn't have time to study the bill, and so on. This misinformation about the Crime of 1873 was picked up by generations of later economists and is still seen today in some accounts.

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 $129,250.