Rusty Goe: To write about a coin that is the solitary existing specimen of a lone day's production run of limited-edition dimes at an isolated mint in a small village in a sparsely populated region of a state destined to become more famous for gambling than anything else it produced, requires a full blast of energy.

As you proceed, please remember you are reading about THE 1873-CC No Arrows dime, not just about 1873-CC No Arrows dimes. Even with the incomprehensibly rare No Arrows quarters of that same year, we are talking about a plural number -- only five, but still a plurality. With the dime, there is only ONE. It rightfully deserves the title, "King of Carson City coins."

The story about it unfolds as the Carson City Mint entered into the third month of its fourth year of making coins. On March 3, 1873, the mint's coiner Chauncey N. Noteware and his staff delivered 12,400 dimes, without arrowheads next to the date, to Superintendent Henry F. Rice. For good measure, Noteware and company also delivered 1,300 Liberty Seated silver dollars and 40,000 No Arrows half dollars on that memorable Monday in March. The mint hands left work that evening knowing that their day's yield of 53,700 coins taxed their only steam-powered press to its limits.

Superintendent Rice snatched five of those 1873-CC No Arrows dimes to send to Philadelphia in compliance with the annual Assay Commission statute. We believe that the only 1873-CC No Arrows dime known to exist survived from that five-piece parcel sent to the Assay Commission. The Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, published in 1874, listed the statistics for the assay testing of all coins sent from the various mints that took place in February of that year. On page 40, the chart showed that the assay commissioners had tested one of the five 1873-CC No Arrows dimes sent by Superintendent Rice. The results revealed that the test-dime weighed 38.05 grains, about .35 of a grain underweight, but still within the legal limit.

First Recorded Appearance

At Edward Cogan's John Swan Randall sale, conducted by Bangs & Co. of New York, in May 1878, Cogan cataloged Lot 902, under the "Dimes" section, as an "1873 Old style. C. C. Mint. Fine impression." Cogan had used the terms "old style" and "new style" to distinguish between the No Arrows and Arrows subtypes.

His use of "Fine impression" for the condition rating does not appear to coincide with our modern-day grade of Fine. Today a coin in Fine-12 or Fine-15 is between the Very Good and Very Fine grade ranges. In Edward Cogan's day (1856 to 1879), numismatists' use of adjectives covered a broader spectrum than does the use of them today. In a collectors' manual popular around that time, the author, George F. Jones, a friend of Cogan's, wrote that, "Allowance must be made, in some cases, as to the condition of coins ... for instance, what one may call 'uncirculated,' others would only denominate as fine...." The subjective nature of rating the conditions of coins allowed a person to use the term Fine much like people then, and today, would use it in a general sense -- "It's a fine day isn't it?" or "That's a fine suit you're wearing," or "He's a fine musician."

Where appropriate, Cogan designated coins in his catalog as "rare," "scarce," and "exceedingly scarce." He added no such designation to the 1873-CC "Old style" dime. The price realized of 17 cents justified his omission of any rarity status for this piece, at least as far as the bidders in his sale perceived it.

Despite the unpretentious listing of this coin, this marks the first known public appearance of an 1873-CC No Arrows dime, outside the Carson City Mint and the Philadelphia Mint's Assay Commission testing room. Unfortunately, we don't know where John Swan Randall got the coin, what its actual condition was, or through whose hands it subsequently passed.

Heaton's Assessment

Fifteen years passed before the numismatic world saw another reference to the 1873-CC No Arrows dime, when Augustus G. Heaton published A Treatise on the Coinage of the United States Branch Mints. The year, 1893, was coincidently the 20th anniversary of the Carson City Mint's striking of the 1873-CC No Arrows dimes, and the year that institution ceased its coining operations for good.

By then, Heaton and a small circle of fellow numismatists had become fascinated with mintmarked coins, and had discovered the rarity of many of them. They faced challenges, however, in not having access to surviving populations and not having U.S. Mint reports that segregated the various branches' production totals into separate categories. Therefore, when Heaton viewed the mintage total for dimes at Carson City in 1873, he saw the figure 31,191. He compared that to the 10,817 dimes minted in Carson City in 1874, and by doing the math, concluded that the 1874-CC was the rarest date. Additionally, since he obviously knew of no 1873-CC Arrows dimes in existence, he could report only about ones "without the arrowheads" for that year.

Throughout Heaton's pamphlet, we see that if he believed a certain issue was scarce he would state it emphatically. He made no such claim about the 1873-CC No Arrows dime, presumably because neither he nor the numismatic community knew its status.

After the release of Heaton's small but influential treatise, the door slammed tight in the face of further findings about the 1873-CC No Arrows dime for at least another 16 years.

Entering the 20th Century

Preeminent numismatist John M. Clapp often compared notes with noted collector DeWitt Smith and writer-researcher-collector A.G. Heaton. The three numismatic luminaries shared a common passion for mintmarked coins. In Clapp's inventory notebook, in the row reserved for an 1873-CC No Arrows dime, a low-key entry reads, "DeWitt Smith has one." The Clapp collection, of course, never included an example of this dime, or its counterpart quarter, but it's easy to imagine its custodians made it a point to track down who did.

It would be great to trace the provenance of the 1873-CC No Arrows dime that DeWitt Smith reportedly owned, but unfortunately, no one has ever proven that DeWitt Smith owned an 1873-CC No Arrows dime.

The Clapp notation, which was made sometime around the early years of the 1900s, is the only fragment of information we have about the 1873-CC No Arrows dime between 1893 (Heaton's pamphlet) and the turn of the 20th century.

In 1951, Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. revealed in his pamphlet that featured highlights from his amazing collection, that his specimen of the famous dime "was first known in 1909 when it left the Mint along with other coins and patterns involved in the settlement of two $50 gold patterns, which were repossessed by the Government."

Years later, Q. David Bowers, in his company's 1996 Eliasberg auction catalog, would reveal that this story had come from long-time professional numismatist, Stephen K. Nagy. Eliasberg, in his 1951 pamphlet had not mentioned Nagy as the source.

Some researchers today question whether Nagy and his mentor Capt. John W. Haseltine obtained the legendary dime for their client, William H. Woodin, in a trade with the Treasury Department. The two Philadelphia dealers, Nagy and Haseltine, had apparently brokered a deal between Woodin and the government, which purportedly involved a large cache of patterns transferred from the Mint Bureau to Woodin in exchange for two 1877 $50 gold Half Unions, which Woodin had reportedly bought for $10,000 apiece.

Interestingly, Abe Kosoff told a similar story in an article he wrote for Coin World in March 1971. He did not mention Nagy, but said "an old-timer who knew all the principals involved" gave him the scoop. Kosoff said nothing about the 1873-CC No Arrows dime being a part of the transfer.

Fortunately, in 1914, an event occurred that gave convincing evidence that an 1873-CC dime, without arrowheads, existed.

Henry Olson Granberg, a collector from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, displayed his 1873-CC No Arrows dime at the American Numismatic Society's Exhibition of United States and Colonial Coins from January to February 1914 in New York City. The cataloger boldly alleged its unique standing when he wrote, "Only specimen known." Granberg's association with Woodin is the reason why the Nagy-Haseltine-Woodin connection to it holds some credence.

First 20th Century Auction Appearance

Wayte Raymond, president of The United States Coin Company of New York City, wrote in his May 1915 Catalogue of the Superb Collection of United States Coins Belonging to a Prominent American:

The collection of coins in this catalogue was formed by one of our prominent American collectors, and it has taken a good many years to secure such a complete collection in such splendid condition...

The sale featured an unquestionably desirable array of rare coins; but it lacked numismatic superstars. Unless, of course, someone had singled out the hidden jewel in the auction.

Raymond described Lot 580, under the section titled "Dimes, Carson City Mint," as follows:

1873 Without Arrows. Uncirculated with mint lustre. Of the greatest rarity, and we believe unique, as we cannot find a record of any other specimen. The rarest and most important coin in the mint mark series.

Although the winning bid of $170 for the unique (at least in Mr. Raymond's opinion) "CC" dime rose to the top of the list of prices realized in the sale, it fell far short of what major rarities were selling for at the time. Notable coins such as 1804 Draped Bust silver dollars, 1787 Brasher doubloons, and 1877 $50 Half Union gold patterns had brought four to five figures in that era. The top price paid for a Carson City coin up to that time had been $250, for an 1876-CC twenty-cent piece, in Raymond's 1913 sale of the Malcolm N. Jackson collection.

Still, the 1873-CC No Arrows dime's appearance at The United States Coin Company's Fifth Ave. suite in New York, advanced it many steps forward from its (or another specimen's) modest debut in Edward Cogan's 1878 sale 37 years earlier. Raymond's 1915 auction catalog had officially designated it as a No Arrows variety, rather than just an "Old style." It rated its condition as Uncirculated, rather than the more vague, "Fine impression." It declared it unique, rather than leaving the question to debate; and the auction raised its market value from 17 cents to 170 dollars -- a 100,000 percent gain!

Thirty years after that sale, Wayte Raymond, writing in 1945, stated that Granberg had built the collection that included the 1873-CC No Arrows dime, and that one of Granberg's suppliers, Woodin, consigned it. So it is unclear to whom the title "Prominent American" referred. Raymond could have justifiably bestowed it on either man.

Raymond's inconclusiveness about who had consigned the 1873-CC No Arrows dime to his 1915 sale forces us to note both Granberg and Woodin in its pedigree line.

Who owned it next? One would think that the auctioneer, in this case Wayte Raymond, would have the inside information. Yet, writing 30 years after the 1915 sale, he said he was "fairly certain that Mr. Lyman H. Low [at the time, a 71-year-old coin dealer from New York] bought it [No Arrows dime] for Virgil M. Brand of Chicago." (The Coin Collector's Journal, July-August 1945, page 72.) Raymond admitted that no business records of that sale existed, so we know he tapped his memory to make his statement.

The problem we have with Raymond's recall is nowhere else in records of Virgil M. Brand's holdings -- none of the numerous catalogs that featured his coins -- do we encounter an 1873-CC No Arrows dime. Furthermore, no one else has ever linked Lyman H. Low's name to the dime.

John J. Ford Jr., who amassed one of the greatest numismatic libraries and one of the most diversified collections of coins, paper money, and everything else numismatic, had a voracious appetite for research, and studied the 1873-CC No Arrows dime. From someone or something (possibly the auction company's bid book in which the prices realized and the names of all winning bidders from the sale appeared), Ford learned that New York coin dealer Rudolph "Rud" Kohler bought the 1873-CC No Arrows dime at the 1915 Prominent American sale. Ford even knew that Kohler won the lot as a floor bidder (in contrast to a mail bidder) at the auction. (The Numismatist, "Wayte Raymond: The Man and the Era," page 158, February 1957.)

Perhaps Kohler, whose office was only about ten blocks from where The U.S. Coin Company conducted the Prominent American auction, acted as an agent for an out-of-town buyer.

Waldo No. 1 Captures Carson City's Finest

Nothing impedes provenance research more than when a famous collector's holdings are dispersed privately, rather than through a major auction. Unfortunately, this happened in the case of one of the most accomplished, and at the same time, most unsung numismatists in history, Waldo C. Newcomer.

In at least one pedigree registry, Rud Kohler's name is omitted and ownership from the Woodin-Granberg alliance (1915 sale) is transferred directly to Waldo C. Newcomer. In other provenance studies, Newcomer's name is replaced with "went into private hands." Recent research confirms that Newcomer owned the coveted dime from the time it sold in the 1915 Prominent American sale (whether through intermediary Kohler or by direct bid) until B. Max Mehl liquidated Newcomer's U.S. coin collection in the early 1930s.

The silver portion of the collection appears to have been complete, with the exception of the 1870-S half dime, 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, and surprisingly, the 1875-CC Below Wreath mintmark dime.

A Trip to Cincinnati

We don't know much about Charles M. Williams, a principal in the Western and Southern Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati, but in 1933, he obviously had enough money to buy Newcomer's complete dime collection from Mehl, and maybe pieces of other denominations. Included in the acquisition, Williams received the 1873-CC No Arrows dime. The cherished but underappreciated dime stayed put in Williams' collection through the rest of the 1930s and the 1940s.

A "Coming Out" Celebration in 1950

Numismatic Gallery scheduled an auction of the collection formed by Charles M. Williams for June 1950. (Williams's 1804 silver dollar and 1822 half eagle were sold private treaty.) The seller-consignor requested anonymity, so Numismatic Gallery used the name of dapper American actor Adolphe Menjou to brand the auction. The actor's image added a romantic flare to the pre-sale interest, but the coins created the greatest buzz.

Cataloger Abe Kosoff listed the many first-class rarities as showstoppers in the auction, including an 1876-CC twenty-cent piece, and an 1894-S Barber dime. The wild card in the sale was the 1873-CC No Arrows dime -- Kosoff struggled to give it proper classification; he grappled with establishing a pre-sale price estimate for it.

For all of the other prestigious coins in the auction, he had relatively recent prices realized. For the 1894-S Barber dime, for instance, Kosoff noted that the World's Greatest Collection specimen in 1945 had brought $2,350. Accordingly, he set his pre-sale estimate in the 1950 Menjou auction at $2,500. He followed this same line of reasoning for all the other attention-getters in the sale.

But how could he use this strategy for the No Arrows dime? The last public price realized for it, $170, was recorded 35 years earlier. Kosoff knew its value had appreciated significantly since then. Writing 20 years after the Menjou auction, Kosoff recalled that before he published the catalog for it, he had set the pre-sale estimate at $2,000. Phone calls from irate clients, however, caused him to cut that number in half by the time his company mailed the catalogs. Still, the $1,000 estimate brought complaints from collectors, who reminded Kosoff that the current price guide listed the 1873-CC No Arrows dime's value at $350, which Kosoff considered totally unreasonable, especially if his inference about the coin's unique status was legitimate.

Kosoff knew of one man in the country who wanted that dime more than any other person did. Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr., who by then had surpassed just about all other numismatists in history in terms of the completeness of his collection, needed the No Arrows dime, and another coin in the Menjou sale, the 1853-O Without Arrows and Rays half dollar, to achieve something no one else had ever achieved.

Eighty-eight lots before the 1873-CC No Arrows dime's turn, Numismatic Gallery offered an 1894-S Barber dime. Interestingly, Kosoff stated that it was the "rarest dime at any of the mints." It's not clear if he meant to say it had the lowest mintage figure of any dime minted in the U.S. or if he meant it was the rarest dime by survival count. It would have been difficult for Kosoff to support the latter claim, even though he had estimated that "about 7 are known to exist." Because 88 lots later he raved about the rarity of the 1873-CC No Arrows dime. He didn't call it unique, as Raymond had done in 1915, but he came close. He did not just limit its rarity to the context of the dime series; he declared it was among the rarest of all U.S. coins. He placed it in company with the 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar and the 1913 Liberty Head nickel. "In fact," he reminded everyone, "these [last two coins mentioned] have been offered several times in the past few years." But when, he asked, was the last 1873-CC No Arrows dime offered? Then he started naming famous collections that did not have the rare dime from Carson City: Boyd, Neil, Stickney, Higgy. He said, "You'll have to search far and wide to find another." He declared that the next owner of the dime would "own a coin the equal of which will probably never appear." Kosoff's prose in this coin's description epitomizes the emotions of a man in the presence of greatness.

A packed house gathered at the auction gallery down the street from Kosoff and Kreisberg's Wilshire Blvd. office in Beverly Hills, at 8:00 p.m. sharp on Thursday June 15, 1950, to witness what promised to be a memorable night. The highest price realized, leading up to the 1873-CC No Arrows dime, was $1,850, for the 1894-S Barber dime, which was a little disappointing since it had fallen 26 percent short of Kosoff's $2,500 pre-sale estimate.

Kosoff then called Lot 399, the 1873-CC No Arrows dime. As he remembered it 20 years later, Kosoff said the "bidding opened at about $1,100 and went rapidly to $2,000 [when Eliasberg jumped in], to $2,500, $3,000, $3,500; Eliasberg bid $3,500 [James] Kelly $3,600, Eliasberg to $3,625; Kelly went to $3,650," and "then silence -- Eliasberg was dropping out."

Writing 25 years later, Eliasberg described his experience at the Menjou auction:

When the Adolphe Menjou catalogue came out in 1950, I flew to California to buy the 1853-O Half Dollar/no arrows, no rays, and an 1873-CC Dime/no arrows. I attempted to purchase the Dime [before the auction] at twice the value they estimated it to be worth, and thereby avoid a trip to California, but they declined. I made the trip and I bid many times what I thought the Dime was worth, but failed to buy it. In fact, I was so provoked ... I did not attend the second session [the following night] to bid for the [1853-O] Half Dollar.

Joseph Stack, a partner in Stack's of New York, with whom Eliasberg had conducted many transactions, stayed for the second session that Friday evening and bought the 1853-O Without Arrows and Rays half dollar, for $890, for his client, who had caught the next flight back to Baltimore. With the purchase of the 1853-O half dollar, Eliasberg still lacked the one coin needed to complete his immortal collection.

Five months passed and, in November 1950, Sol Kaplan wrote to Eliasberg and asked him what he would pay for the dime. Eliasberg, who was brooding over his unpleasant auction experience and also grieving over the loss of his wife to cancer in December 1949, responded gallantly that he would pay $4,000. Kaplan shipped the coin and Eliasberg sent a check. What should have happened in June came to pass on November 7, 1950. Eliasberg had achieved the goal he had set for himself many years earlier.

The dime remained in the Eliasberg family's possession for 46 years, under the patriarch's supervision until his death in February 1976, and then another 20 years in the custody of his younger son, Richard A. Eliasberg.

With its uniqueness established and its inclusion in the most famous U.S. coin collection in history, the addition of the 1873-CC No Arrows dime to the Eliasberg collection did much to elevate the notoriety and popularity of Carson City coins.

Into the Hands of Waldo No. 2

In the Eliasberg May 1996 auction catalog, produced by Bowers and Merena of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Bowers wrote, under Lot 1198 in the dimes section:

1873-CC Without Arrows at date. MS-65 or finer. The only specimen known to exist. The final coin acquired, November 7, 1950, to complete the Eliasberg Collection.

Bowers wrote about the pending 1996 sale, that the 1873-CC No Arrows dime "will forever be remembered as one of the greatest auction offerings of all time." To further entice prospective bidders, and to forevermore silence any doubters of the dime's significance, he wrote, "The importance of this coin is unsurpassed by any rarity in the American series. Not only is it the only specimen of its issue known to exist, it is further the only Carson City coin of any denomination that is unique."

At first, the auctioneer at the podium recognized bids from all over the floor. Yet in the end, everyone else had dropped out after bidding hit $500,000, and an Illinois manufacturer of bubble gum machines, Waldo E. "Pat" Bolen Jr., after paying a 10 percent buyer's fee, bagged the dime.

After the Eliasberg 1996 sale, Bolen told a reporter, "I was prepared to pay a million dollars [for it]." (Coinage, August 1996, page 44, Miller Publishing, Ventura, CA). Many people had thought it had a chance to reach that level, especially after the 1913 Liberty Head nickel's record-setting showing -- at $1.485 million -- but others thought Bolen had paid too much.

Regardless, the now world-renowned Carson City dime had received further recognition of its elevated value. The price realized ($550,000) represented an increase of 13,750 percent over Eliasberg's cost 46 years earlier; and, once again, it had bested the performance of the 1894-S Barber dime, which sold for $451,000 in the same 1996 auction.

At the end of the 20th century, the 1873-CC No Arrows dime ranked right at the top on the list of the rarest coins in the world, in good company with other unique examples, some of which were not even available to collectors.

The Value Increases

Bolen used the 1873-CC No Arrows dime as a cornerstone to build another set of coins. In April 1999, Bolen's 11-piece silver and gold set of Carson City coins from the year 1873 sold at auction at the Milwaukee Central States Numismatic Society convention. Combined, Bolen's coins brought $1,056,275. The 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, which Bolen had bought in the Eliasberg 1997 sale, and its unique companion dime accounted for 70 percent of that total.

"Jay" Parrino, a Kansas City, Missouri coin dealer, bought Bolen's 1873-CC No Arrows dime for $632,500 in that 1999 CSNS auction, which established a new world-record price for the denomination.

After owning the illustrious Carson City dime for five years, Parrino consigned it, along with his unique 1870-S half dime, to Bowers and Merena's July 2004 Baltimore convention sale.

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 $1,880,000.