Jeff Ambio: The Type I Reverse is identifiable by the proximity of the wreath to the upper right corner of the letter E in ONE, as well as a split at the left ribbon end.

Rusty Goe: With the smallest workforce at any mint in the country, and at the beginning of the year equipped with only two coin presses, the Carson Mint kept pace during 1876 with the one in San Francisco in production of all denominations except trade dollars and double eagles. The frenetic activity pressed employees to their limits, and by the end of the year Carson City had delivered 8,270,000 dimes, the highest mintage total for any coin in its history.

More than 120 years later, in 1999, a construction company's excavation crew dug up evidence on the grounds of the old mint in Carson City that reveals what the extraordinary pressure on those 1876 workers caused them to do. Hundreds of cancelled coin dies from the Carson Mint were found buried in the ground near where that institution's blacksmith shop was located. An 1876 half dollar die and many others from that centennial year were found -- even one for the classic rarity, the 1876-CC twenty-cent piece.

Under normal circumstances, employees would have sent those cancelled dies to the Philadelphia Mint, as required by law. Instead, perhaps because of the strenuous workload that often carried over into the evenings and into the weekends, those workers bypassed certain routines because of exhaustion.

By midyear, a third coin press, this one a nine-ton behemoth, joined the two in the already crowded coining room. The constant clatter in that small coining room would have been a challenge.

Besides the cancelled dies that were unearthed in the 20th century, we have further evidence of stress-induced 19th century practices by Carson Mint personnel. Random examples of 1876-CC dimes display coarse, pimpled surfaces. These irregularities happened because mint workers used rusted dies to stamp these coins. Again, under normal conditions, the men in charge of the dies would have kept them lubricated with oil to protect them from the hellish climate inside the building, with the acidic fumes wafting through it.

The dimes we have today that were struck from rusted dies, many of them certified in Mint State condition, and the cancelled dies discovered, give us behind-the-scenes clues about work conditions at the Carson City Mint during the busiest year in its history.

Q. David Bowers: The mintage of Carson City dimes in 1876 touched the high water mark and as a result, these pieces are very plentiful today in the context of CC issues.

Today 1876-CC dimes are plentiful in just about any grade desired. Some of them have prooflike surfaces, leading them to be called Proof or even be certified as Proof, which may be the case, although no official documentation exists of a ceremony for striking such. Rusty Goe notes, "Proof dimes were indeed minted. It is certainly conceivable that Superintendent Crawford authorized a few of the special coins to be struck, if for nothing more than to serve as mementos of the centennial."

It is a pleasant exercise to acquire one each of the 1875-CC (two varieties) through 1878-CC dimes in Mint State, then to try to acquire earlier issues in whatever grades might be found and can be afforded, these being circulated.

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 $15,862.