Jeff Ambio: On the only known obverse of the 1881-CC Liberty eagle, the date is set low in the field and slants down slightly from left to right. On later die states, a fairly bold die crack bisects the base of the date and extends toward the border after the final digit 1. The CC mintmark on the reverse is both taller and set higher in the field than that seen on all three reverse dies of the 1880-CC delivery. The first C is noticeably higher than the second.

Rusty Goe: In 1881, while the coiners at the Philadelphia Mint were cranking out more gold eagles than in any year in that institution's 89-year history, Levi Dague and his faithful squad at the Carson branch set a record for that denomination, too. The contrast in quantities, however, defies the imagination. Beginning in January, the Philadelphia contingent put its equipment and its manpower (some women adjusters too) to the test, as it tore into the massive supply of gold bullion that had mostly come from the unprecedented influx of foreign deposits. By year-end, the parent Mint's coining department had delivered more gold eagles than the aggregate total from 1795 to 1878! Even if the two previous years' totals were added (1879 - 1880), which had already seen explosive expansions in eagle production, 1881's figure came within 70 percent of the combined mintages of the previous 88 seasons. Double eagle production had again been reduced to low-priority status in 1881, as half eagles teamed with eagles to form the gold coins du jour.

At Carson City, in spite of Nevada House Representative Rollin Daggett's appeal from 1880 to keep the local mint running 12 months a year, another work stoppage, beginning in April, limited 1881's schedule to just five. The coiners in Philadelphia averaged over 320,000 eagles monthly during their full-time production year in 1881, while Dague's department averaged 4,803 in each of the five months it had the presses operating.

In the first three months, before the shutdown in April, the Carson Mint had produced 7,249 eagles. When coining resumed in November, Dague delivered 7,836 pieces, and followed that run with another one in December of 8,930. Dague had turned out almost as many eagles in that partial year of production in 1881 than he had in all of the previous five years combined. The statistic mattered little on a national scale wherein nearly 4.9 million eagles had come forth, but it resonated in Carson City because it showed that the local mint still had some life to it.

The 1881-CC eagle is another date in the series in which as many as three percent of the original output survives. It is a relatively easy date for collectors to find in conditions as high as MS-61. After that, the task becomes more difficult.

Q. David Bowers: From a mintage of 1881-CC eagles of 24,015, Rusty Goe estimates 600 to 695 survive overall, with 45 to 65 Uncirculated. My estimates are 250 to 400, with 50 to 75 Mint State. The last typically hover around the lower MS levels, and some of them are graduates from AU listings. VF and EF are the usually seen grades. The 1881-CC is a Carson City eagle for just about anyone -- quite plentiful in a relative sense.

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 $99,875.