Jeff Ambio: The obverse of this issue has a small, compact date logotype that is set low in the field. The digit 1 is much closer to the denticles than the base of Liberty's portrait, and the lower left serif of that digit is centered over a denticle. The CC mintmark on the reverse is small, round and nearly centered over the space between the words TWENTY and DOLLARS. The first C is just past the right edge of the letter Y in TWENTY, while the second C is just barely over the extreme left edge of the letter D in DOLLARS.

Rusty Goe: In 1890, things got even better at the Carson City Mint. Coiner C.H. Colburn would go on to deliver more than $4.5 million in face value of three denominations of gold, and silver dollars.

Old Comstock legends such as the Con. Virginia and California Mining Co. and the Hale & Norcross, who were experiencing the tail end of a very minor boom in 1890, brought their deposits to Carson City. So did some of the much smaller, remote mining operators.

The capital city jubilated over the bustling activity at the mint, and the mechanical purring sounds of the coin presses inside. On June 18, 1890, the Daily Nevada State Journal reported that the state's U.S. House representative, Horace F. Bartine, had introduced a bill to obtain an appropriation "for the enlargement and improvement of the melting and refining department." A year and a half earlier, many in Carson City had feared the government would shut down the mint for good; now here was Bartine, who had once worked under James Crawford's administration, asking to build an add-on to it.

The Carson City Mint's annual figure for double eagles in 1890, of 91,209, would stand as the fourth highest total in its history. Diminished output in the second half of the year, however, had signaled that significant changes were waiting as 1891 approached.

The survival rate for 1890-CC double eagles of three to four percent of the original mintage is typical of many dates in this series. The exceptional quality of most extant examples of this issue, especially in grades of AU-55 and above, offers much satisfaction to today's collectors.

Q. David Bowers: Most 1890-CC double eagles were exported, many after having seen light circulation in the West. Rusty Goe estimates that 3,300 to 3,600 survive, of which 225 to 300 are Mint State. My estimate is 1,500 to 2,500 or so in circulated grades and 175 to 250 in Mint State (but see below).

Most Mint State coins seen on the market today are MS-60 or 61. The 1890-CC is fairly scarce and exceedingly popular. Curiously, choice and Gem coins, once plentiful, are scarcely seen today, a puzzle! It could be that this is a variety that was more available in high grades in the 1960s through the early 1980s than at the present time. David W. Akers, writing in 1982 in his pivotal study of the $20 denomination, commented: "The 1890-CC is readily obtainable in any grade up to and including average Uncirculated. In Choice Uncirculated it can be considered no more than scarce and there is also a substantial number of gems in existence. Literally hundreds of Uncs. of this date exist, most of them having come back to the United States from Europe in the late 1960s." Of course, if they did exist in 1982 they are still around somewhere, perhaps in hiding. Where are the many Gems?

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 $36,718.