Jeff Ambio: The only known obverse die of the 1876-CC double eagle is characterized by a large date logotype with the digit 1 centered between the base of Liberty's portrait and the denticles. Conversely, there are two reverse dies known, that of the Winter 1-A marriage displaying a small, round, compact CC mintmark. The first C is centered over the left serif of the right upright of the letter N in TWENTY while the second C is over the extreme right edge of the same letter and extends nearly to the left edge of the adjacent letter T.

Rusty Goe: Newspapers on the Pacific Coast used the centennial year theme as an excuse to summarize the spellbinding story of what had happened around Virginia City over the previous several years. The Daily Alta California of January 18, 1876, headlined a feature article, "THE BONANZA AT THE CENTENNIAL." In it they told how the Bonanza kings (Mackay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien) planned to ship a month's worth of bullion from their Con. Virginia and California Mines to the Centennial Exhibition, scheduled to begin in May in Philadelphia. The Alta questioned if the men's estimate of $10 million was accurate.

In the end, representatives from Comstock mines set up a mini-mill exhibit at the Philadelphia Exhibition, at which stamping machines demonstrated to the public how ore was processed. Ingots from the procedure were purportedly sold as souvenirs. The Philadelphia Mint also struck about 2,500 Nevada Centennial medallions, which were made from the silver crushed at the Nevada exhibit at the Exposition, according to the Philadelphia Mint's coiner.

As for the Carson Mint, it received disproportionately lower amounts of the Comstock's bullion, even as the yields in its mines continued to escalate. Yet those smaller shares of the larger production brought more work to the mint in 1876 than it had ever experienced.

Between January and June, Dague had delivered 67,477 double eagles dated 1876. From July through the end of the year, he stamped out 70,964 more of them. The most prolific year in the Carson City Mint's history ended on several high notes. Dague had produced a much larger quantity of double eagles (about 17,000 pieces) in December 1876 than his average release from the past 17 months. The total of 138,441 set the all-time record for annual output of that denomination at that branch and it kept the streak alive of achieving emissions of more than 110,000 for a third year. The Mint also set records for the total quantity of all coins produced, as well as the aggregate face value.

Q. David Bowers: Rusty Goe estimates 3,500 to 4,200 1876-CC double eagles survive, of which 325 to 375 are Uncirculated. Again, my numbers are more conservative. VF, EF, and AU coins are plentiful from overseas hoards. This is the most available Carson City double eagle of the Type II design. Uncirculated double eagles of this variety come to market with some frequency. The writer recalls a hoard of several hundred pieces imported from long-time storage overseas that entered the market in the 1970s. Many of these had prooflike surfaces and all of them were considerably nicked and marked, apparently from handling and multiple countings.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the Fairmont Collection, Hendricks Set, where it realized $72,000.