The 1871-CC issue has the lowest mintage among Carson City Mint Liberty Seated dollars. Only a handful of Mint State examples are known, one of which will be featured as lot 5077 in the Rarities Night session of our August 2023 Global Showcase Auction. Certified MS-61 by PCGS, this coin is among the finest known for this scarce date which falls at a peculiar inflection point in U.S. coinage history. It was struck toward the end of the Liberty Seated silver dollar series and near the beginning of the Carson City Mint’s operations.
In the second year of coinage operations at the Carson City Mint – which had commenced on February 11 the previous year with the striking of Liberty Seated dollars – only 1,376 silver dollars were produced. Many of the coins found their way into commerce on the western frontier, resulting in a small population of truly attractive examples.
1871-CC silver dollars were produced as business picked up at the Mint on Carson Street.
The facility’s Superintendent, Henry F. Rice suggested and received approval to implement two reforms which significantly changed the facility’s output in 1871. A bullion fund allowed him to pay cash up front to depositors which, in conjunction with the authority to offer the Mint’s assaying services to miners in the region, substantially increased bullion deposits.
Coinage of silver dollars, however, languished, at least in part because the dollar’s silver value was higher than that of two half dollars, making the coins less attractive to depositors.
Even as coinage production increased in the latter half of the year, the entire mintage of silver dollars for 1871 was produced in one day in the summer.
Though the 1873-CC’s mintage is higher, it is rarer than the 1871-CC. Rusty Goe, in his 2020 book, The Confident Carson City Coin Collector, estimates that 105 to 135 1871-CC Liberty Seated dollars exist. PCGS’ Population Report, at time of writing, lists three grading events for 1871-CC silver dollars in Mint State grades, two of which, including the offered coin, grade MS-61. The only finer coin recorded in the Population Report grades MS-64.
This 1871-CC silver dollar last crossed the block more than a decade ago as part of the Battle Born Collection, in our 2012 Philadelphia ANA World’s Fair of Money Auction. More than a decade later, we are pleased to present it again in our upcoming auction.
View our August 2023 Global Showcase Auction at StacksBowers.com. To consign your numismatic items to this or another of our upcoming auctions, call 800-458-4646 or email Info@StacksBowers.com.
