Jeff Ambio: The only known die marriage of this issue has a medium size date evenly spaced between the base of Liberty's neck and the denticles. The reverse die was earlier used to strike some 1873-CC eagles. The mintmark is small, round, even, and positioned below the tip of the lowermost arrow feather. A loupe reveals a very faint die scratch through the letter O in GOD.

As with all early Carson City Mint eagles, the 1874-CC is an elusive issue in all grades that is particularly challenging to locate at or above the EF level. The 1874-CC is not unknown in Mint State, as is the case with the 1870-CC, 1872-CC and 1873-CC, but it is exceedingly rare at that level.

Rusty Goe: In January 1874, San Francisco's Daily Alta California said the Carson City Mint had "little or nothing to do." This may have been the case at the beginning of the year, but they would display rigorous execution of their craft before it ended. Monthly production of coins and bars (unparted gold and silver, and fine silver) saw incremental increases, jumping from a quarter of a million dollars in January 1874 to double that amount in February, with subsequent advances through the year.

For some reason, a stepped-up demand for $10 gold pieces caused the Carson Mint's coining department to deliver nearly as many examples in 1874 as it had in the three previous years combined with 7,725 in the first half of the year, and 9,042 in the second half.

A relatively high percentage of that original mintage figure of 16,767 survives today: perhaps two and a half percent. Only two of the extant pieces are known in Mint State.

Q. David Bowers: I estimate that 150 to 225 1874-CC eagles exist today. Rusty Goe is a bit more liberal and suggests 340 to 415. The number of Mint State pieces depends on who is counting and grading, but two to four seems to be in the ballpark.

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 $199,750.