Jeff Ambio: The only die marriage known for this exceedingly rare issue has a Close 3 in the date with the digits 1 and 3 slanting to the right. The right base of the digit 1 is longer than the left base. Interestingly, the reverse die used to strike this issue is different from that which the Carson City Mint used to strike all known 1870-CC, 1871-CC, 1872-CC and even 1873-CC Arrows quarters. It is readily identifiable by the presence of a die scratch within the second C mintmark.

Until the early 1990s only three examples of the 1873-CC No Arrows Liberty Seated quarter were known to exist, all of which are Mint State coins. In 1992, however, a circulated example was confirmed at that year's ANA convention, followed by a second circulated example authenticated by Larry Briggs (author of the book The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of United States Liberty Seated Quarters, 1991) in 1996. The total number of 1873-CC No Arrows quarters known has remained firm since then at just five coins.

Rusty Goe: Possibly no other year in history rivals 1873 in significance for coinage-related matters in the United States. No one living in Carson City, Nevada in that year could have known that because of a change in coinage laws, a quarter dollar of all things would become anything other than money to pay for a small crock of butter, a half peck of potatoes, a half dozen eggs, a pound of coffee, a lunch, or two mugs of beer. Yet, a handful of Carson City Mint quarter dollars became so special that today an example will bring hundreds of thousands of dollars when sold. Numismatists of all ranks and classes regard this issue, the 1873-CC No Arrows, with particular awe and admiration. Only one other coin from the Carson City Mint surpasses its regality and rarity.

The Coinage Act of 1873

On February 12, 1873, Congress passed a sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation's coinage system. One of the mandates of the Coinage Act of 1873 increased the weight of silver in small change by less than half of one percent. A quarter dollar, for example, increased in weight from 96 grains to 96.45 grains. To eliminate any confusion in the public's awareness of this minor modification, the new "heavier weight" silver coins displayed arrowheads on either side of the date.

Influences on Carson City Coinage

On a Saturday, January 18, 1873, mint workers in Carson City delivered the first fruits of the new year. Press No. 1 had stamped out 1,000 1873-CC Liberty Seated silver dollars, 22,000 1873-CC No Arrows half dollars, and 4,000 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollars. They never did strike another No Arrows quarter dollar.

Coiner Chauncey N. Noteware had grabbed sample specimens from that 4,000-piece No Arrows quarters run, and handed them to Superintendent Rice. The superintendent personally inspected the samples, and saved a specified amount to ship to Philadelphia for examination at the annual Assay Commission meeting.

Superintendent Rice, who would tender his resignation in May in protest over personnel changes at the Carson City Mint, sent a memo, dated April 16, 1873, to Philadelphia Mint Superintendent James Pollock that accompanied the assay-sample coins. This correspondence is the source that reveals the mintage figures for Carson City Mint coins in the first quarter of 1873. It shows us that Rice sent two 1873-CC No Arrows quarters to the Assay Commission.

A standard theory postulated by numismatic researchers is that rare coins, such as the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollars, survived because of their link to the annual Assay Commission. In some cases, this theory sounds credible. As for the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, however, we need to probe deeper for answers.

The 1874 annual director's report notes that the assay commissioners tested only one of the two quarter dollars Rice sent; it even tells us the quarter weighed 96 grains -- a perfect score.

If Superintendent Rice sent only two sample quarter dollars and the assay commissioners destroyed one of them during testing, that leaves only one piece for posterity. So how did we wind up with the number of 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollars known to exist today? Perhaps one explanation is Rice's practice of sending sample coins to the San Francisco Mint for inspection. And perhaps locals in Carson City asked for souvenir pieces. The final answer is: we don't know.

Early Collector Interest

After the transition from old-weight to new-weight silver coins took place, the Carson City Mint delivered 12,462 1873 quarter dollars (all with arrowheads on either side of the date), between April and December of that year. The 16,462 1873-CC Liberty Seated quarters -- both subtypes -- struck in Carson City, combined with all the other coins minted there in that landmark year, represent one of the most engrossing fields of study in numismatic history. Yet it would take years for numismatists to appreciate some of the these rare coins' significance and value.

Collectors in the mid-1870s, and carrying forward into the first six decades of the 20th century with access to Mint directors' annual reports, knew the Carson City Mint had struck 16,462 quarter dollars in 1873. Yet they didn't know how they should divide that total between the Arrows and No Arrows subtypes; and they had no clue as to how many of each subtype had survived.

For many decades, most numismatists were unaware of the first reported sale of an 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar. In Edward D. Cogan's May 1878 sale, the John Swan Randall 1873-CC No Arrows quarter sold for 35 cents. The cataloger, who described the coin as being "Nearly Uncirculated," did not refer to it as a No Arrows variety, but instead labeled it as "Old style." Cogan shed light on what he meant by "Old style" when he described the next lot, another 1873 quarter dollar (not a "CC"), as "New style, with Arrows. Uncirculated." The sale of the Randall specimen remained a virtual secret for 110 years. Bowers and Merena noted it in their Norweb sale Part II catalog in March 1988 (giving credit to P. Scott Rubin).

We don't find another mention of the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter until 1893. Augustus G. Heaton wrote in his 1893 groundbreaking treatise that the 1873-CC quarter dollar had "two varieties, one with arrowheads to the date and the other without." He said, "Both are exceedingly rare."

For the next 26 years, until 1919, we find little discourse about the rarest quarter dollar from the Carson City Mint. The item's conspicuous absence at the American Numismatic Society's 1914 Exhibition of United States and Colonial Coins in New York City elicited no written comments. This event, which boasted of the greatest display of U.S. and colonial coins up to that time, featured many acclaimed rarities. Exhibitors' displays included four 1804 Draped Bust silver dollars, an 1870-S Seated Liberty silver dollar, the Proof 1884 and 1885 trade dollars, the 1823/2 and 1827 Capped Bust quarter dollars, and a 1787 Brasher doubloon. The Carson City Mint was well represented, with complete sets of all the silver issues, with the exception of an 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar. The 1873-CC Liberty Seated No Arrows dime made its first recognized, general-public appearance (unless it was represented at the 1878 Cogan sale) at the exhibition.

B. Max Mehl, of Fort Worth, TX, cataloged the sale of the July 16, 1919 auction of a portion of H.O. Granberg's collection. In his description of Lot 358, under the "Carson City Mint Quarter Dollars" he wrote, "1873 Without arrow heads at sides of date. Practically Uncirculated. Excessively rare." He made no mention, however, of this date-denomination-subtype's absence at the 1914 ANS event. Interestingly, Granberg, the consignor of this 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar, had displayed his 1873-CC No Arrows dime at the exhibition.

The winning bidder paid $46 for Granberg's 1873-CC No Arrows quarter in the July 1919 sale; and someone bought an 1873-CC Arrows quarter, which Mehl described as "Uncirculated, bright mint lustre," for $11.80. Just imagine, that incredible pair of "CC" quarter dollars selling for $57.80.

John M. and John H. Clapp and the 1873-CC No Arrows Quarter

John M. Clapp, and his son John H., two of the most prominent coin collectors in U.S. history, and the team that assembled a large percentage of the pieces that formed the major part of Louis E. Eliasberg Sr.'s record-setting collection, certainly knew their rarities. Writing around 1905, in the family rare-coin inventory ledger, John M. (presumably) entered the following in the blank space reserved for the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter: "Want this." Further on Clapp wrote, "D[eWitt] Smith Says [A. G.] Heaton has one [ -- ] bot [sic] from [Harlan P.] Smith." Smith, a Massachusetts collector, appears to have been very interested in mintmarked coins. Heaton wrote the pamphlet about mintmarked coins. If he did in fact own an 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar, he never wrote about it in The Numismatist, a publication that featured many of his articles.

Three Uncirculated 1873-CC No Arrows Quarter Dollars

Between July 1919, the time of Mehl's sale of Granberg's 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, and March 1945 very little information had surfaced about this elusive rarity. Abraham "Abe" Kosoff sold, with his partner, Abner Kreisberg, one of the most extensive coin collections in history in 1945 and 1946. Assembled by F.C.C. "Fred" Boyd, a newspaper distributor from New York, and headlined by Kosoff as the World's Greatest Collection, this extraordinary accumulation of U.S. coins caught the attention of numismatists everywhere.

Boyd's holdings included 107 of the 111 coins in a complete Carson City Mint set. The 32-year-old Kosoff said the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar was "a coin of which the degree of rarity is difficult to indicate." He noted that an appearance of an example of this date "in any condition would be an outstanding feature of any sale." But in Uncirculated condition, as the Boyd specimen was, "[it] is truly an event." Kosoff admitted he could not "fairly estimate the value of this coin," and concluded by stating it was probably "unique in this condition."

Harold M. Budd Sr., of Los Angeles, CA, bought the Boyd 1873-CC No Arrows quarter for $725. He did not cite the World's Greatest Collection sale as the source for his prized possession when he submitted his letter to the editor of The Numismatist in December 1948 (it appeared in the January 1949 issue), but inferential evidence overwhelmingly confirms the Boyd-Budd connection. In his letter, Budd wrote that, "Auction records and other records will show that this (the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter) has only been offered once in the past 25 years." Budd claimed to own a specimen and added, "I have been unable to find anyone [else] that has one."

Another clue that suggests Budd bought the Boyd specimen in 1945 came indirectly from Abe Kosoff. Writing in 1968, about the sale of the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter in 1945, Kosoff said it sold for $725, and exclaimed, "What this coin would bring today!" He mistakenly recalled that Harold M. Budd bought the 1876-CC twenty-cent piece in that 1945 auction, and forgot that Budd bought the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter instead. Five years later, in June 1950, Budd did buy an 1876-CC twenty-cent in Numismatic Gallery's Adolphe Menjou auction.

One of the most telling signs that link the Boyd specimen to Harold M. Budd Sr. is the image of the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter in the World's Greatest Collection catalog. The characteristics shown in that catalog undeniably match those on the Norweb specimen. The Norwebs bought the quarter from an intermediary, Benjamin Stack at Imperial Coin Company, linked to them and Budd's widow, which provides convincing evidence the quarter came from the Budd collection.

Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. owned the second of three known Uncirculated specimens. Some sources claim that Eliasberg bought his 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar in the WGC sale. The truth is, the toning patterns on the Eliasberg specimen don't match those on the Boyd piece. We know that Eliasberg obtained his 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollar before 1950. His source remains a mystery, which perhaps we could solve by examining the Ben G. Green Check Book he used to record his acquisitions.

James Aloysius Stack, whose mesmerizing collection of coins was sold decades after his passing in 1951, once owned the finest of three Uncirculated 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollars. The cataloger for Stack's March 1975 James A. Stack auction in his description of the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter, wrote, "There is a small notation in Mr. Stack's hand that this coin is from the Browning Collection." Numismatic experts concur that this referred to the author of Early Quarter Dollars of the United States, 1796 --1838, Ard W. Browning.

Eliasberg, Budd, and Stack each had acquired an Uncirculated 1873-CC No Arrows quarter -- the only three examples in that condition extant today -- before 1950, and probably none of them knew the others had one.

Four Featured Sales Spotlight 1873-CC No Arrows Quarters 1988-1997

The three Mint State 1873-CC No Arrows quarter dollars gained more notoriety when they sold in the four following sales between 1988 and 1997:

PCGS eventually graded the Norweb specimen MS-64, and the Eliasberg specimen MS-63.

NGC graded the James A. Stack specimen MS-66 (upgrading it from the MS-65 rating PCGS had given it). The Norweb coin is offered here as part of the Battle Born collection. Eugene H. Gardner currently owns the Eliasberg specimen. The James A. Stack specimen currently belongs to a collector in the South.

Two Circulated Examples

With the three Mint State specimens clearly indentified, numismatists welcomed two more 1873-CC No Arrows quarters to the extant population during the 20th century's last decade. One example is reportedly linked somehow to Abner Kreisberg, Abe Kosoff's former partner at Numismatic Gallery. NGC eventually awarded this piece an XF-40 condition rating, the only survivor of this treasured date-denomination-subtype certified in a grade below the Uncirculated level.

Coin dealer Leon Hendrickson unveiled the fifth specimen in 1996, when someone brought it to his store in Indiana in 1996. Liberty Seated quarter expert Larry Briggs authenticated it and declared it genuine. The coin's rough surfaces disqualify it from receiving a grade from a third-party service, but it displays the details seen on Fine to Very Fine Seated quarters.

Q. David Bowers said it best when he wrote in the Eliasberg 1997 catalog that the famous quarter is "THE rarity in the Liberty Seated quarter series and, indeed, the entire denomination." I would add to that homage that the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter is the second rarest coin in the Carson City Mint series and is worthy to take up its royal seat next to the King of all Carson City coins.

Q. David Bowers: In American numismatics the 1873-CC quarter dollar without arrows at date may take the prize as an unheralded rarity. This is no better exemplified than by mentioning that in his Treatise on Mint Marks, 1893, Augustus G. Heaton mentioned that there were two varieties of 1873-CC quarters, stating that "both are exceedingly rare," creating what would later prove to be a meaningless comparison, when in the mid 20th century numismatists realized that the 1873-CC No Arrows variety was many orders rarer. Today it is believed that just five exist as delineated by Jeff Ambio above, three being Mint State, perhaps rescued from those sent for use by the Assay Commission early the following year. The recorded mintage is 4,000 pieces, but likely many were melted, possibly because the weight was changed by the Coinage Act of February 12, 1873, and it was decided not to distribute them, but to turn them back into bullion. Many 1873-CC trade dollars seem to have been melted for the same reason. Once again the facts are scarce and it is dangerous to make guesses, as one might be proven wrong later.

Whatever the circumstances, it seems that very few reached actual circulation. Rusty Goe records an early (perhaps the very first) auction appearance as an example cataloged by Edward D. Cogan and sold as part of the John Swan Randall Collection in May 1878 (lot 795). Randall is better remembered today as the namesake of the so-called Randall Hoard of Uncirculated copper cents of 1816 to 1820, which came into his possession and is well chronicled in the literature. Edward D. Cogan, successor to the business of his father, George, hoped to make a splash as a coin auctioneer but lacked the talent, and did not last for long. At the time the quarter was described as "1873-CC old style. Nearly Uncirculated." The winning bid was 35 cents. Years passed, and other examples came on the market, again with scarcely any notice. In 1945 the Numismatic Gallery offered "The World's Greatest Collection" at auction, this being the cabinet of F.C.C. Boyd. The world's greatest it certainly was not, as it lacked most of the famous American rarities and was light on mintmarks. However, the name was catchy enough, and the coins that were included were uniformly finer than typically encountered.

When Larry Briggs wrote his 1991 book, The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of United States Seated Quarters, he commented that only three coins had been verified. Since then additional scholarship has brought the number to five, where it is likely to remain. What with eagle-eyed members of the Liberty Seated Coin Club ever on the lookout for scarcities and rarities, it is unlikely that any others will come to light. In an article in The Gobrecht Journal, November 1989, Larry Briggs noted: "In October 1872 the Carson City Mint requested three new obverses but no new reverse dies for the striking of quarter dollars. On November 9, 1872, three obverse dies dated 1873 without arrows arrived. At this point the Carson City Mint had on hand a total of four different reverses it could have used to strike CC quarters. But up to this point [only one reverse, the one first used in 1870] had been employed. Now, for some reason, the mint decided to use one of the other three reverses on hand. On January 18, 1873, the Carson City Mint struck 4,000 pieces of the 1873-CC No Arrows quarter using the new reverse die. On February 12, 1873, the Coinage Act was passed, making the No Arrows quarters underweight in relation to the new coinage. Most of these pieces seem to have been melted by the Mint on or before July 10, 1873. Only one obverse die and one reverse die are known to have been used to strike the 1873 No Arrows quarter. But the reverse die is different from that used to strike previous Carson City quarters. Only one obverse die was used to strike the 1873 with arrows quarters. This die was paired with the old reverse that was used to make quarters dated 1870-1872."

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 $470,000.