Jeff Ambio: Numismatic scholars have identified only a single obverse and reverse die marriage for the 1890-CC Liberty eagle. The obverse exhibits a large date that is set low in the field, slanting down from left to right. The CC mintmark is tall with the first C higher than the second. The first C is over the left edge of the letter N in TEN while the second C, which is entirely to the right of the tip of the lowermost arrow feather, is above the right upright of the letter N.

Rusty Goe: As the Carson City Mint lay virtually dormant from March 1885 through October 1889, it had missed a good rally of sorts on the nearby Comstock Lode. The yields in the mid-1880s had risen to five times what the earth had surrendered during the crash of 1880-1881. Eight months after it reopened and five months after it recommenced coining operations, Nevada's prized institution received accolades from newspapers in the state. Reno's Weekly Gazette and Stockman of March 6, 1890, headlined its article about the mint: "The Service All That One Could Ask For -- Everything Running Along Without a Jar or Discord." It went on to say, "Superintendent Wright has proven himself the right man in the right place." One officer in Wright's ranks had especially caught the Gazette and Stockman's attention. "In the Coiner's Department," said the article, "things move along like clockwork, and the administration has lost nothing by the appointment of C.H. Colburn."

Colburn had no prior mint experience before Wright appointed him, let alone in the operating of coin presses. He had become familiar with the intricacies of the process in the last few months of 1889, and by mid-1890 was banging out coins as fast as he could. Colburn received no orders for smaller denomination gold coins in the first half of 1890, as he put full effort into producing massive quantities (in Carson Mint terms anyway) of silver dollars. He also turned out double eagles in those first six months. Midway through the year, the Treasury Department sent notice to Superintendent Wright that it was about to open the spigots on the flow of smaller denomination gold coins, after a brief curtailment of that activity in late 1889 and early 1890. Between July and December Colburn ran 17,500 eagles through his press. Not a very impressive number, especially in comparison to how many the San Francisco and Philadelphia mints had turned out in the past.

Yet for the Carson branch, it represented the second highest mintage of eagles in that institution's history. The 1890 is considered one of the more common dates in the "CC" eagle series. Yet with a survival rate of perhaps four percent, the supply available to collectors is not classed as abundant. Most examples of this issue possess pleasing eye appeal, even in grades as low as Almost Uncirculated.

Q. David Bowers: Of the 17,500 1890-CC eagles struck, Rusty Goe estimates 660 to 775, with 155 to 225 in Mint State. I estimate 500 or so in circulated grades and 75 to 125 in Mint State. This is the first Carson City year for which the acquisition of a Mint State coin becomes somewhat easy. As demonstrated in our descriptions, earlier CC eagles range from non-existent or nearly so, to extremely rare.

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 $55,812.