THE TWO-YEAR TWENTY-CENT PIECE series debuted in a whirlwind of controversy and it has bewildered and intrigued numismatists ever since. The pat answer provided to explain why Congress added this denomination to the nation’s money supply is it solved a problem of western-state shoppers and barhoppers getting short-changed by the “short bit” system. The true answer is probably political, since the bill to introduce twenty-cent pieces was sponsored by Nevada Senator John P. Jones, whose miner friends on the Comstock needed an outlet for all the silver oozing out of the lush load.

By 1876, the specious experiment proved to be a flop. Even so, Superintendent James Crawford received an order from Director of the Mint H.R. Linderman to produce 10,000 twenty-cent pieces at Carson City. Probably at least 9,980 of these coins remained in a vault for ten months, until Linderman ordered Crawford to melt them. Henceforth a great rarity was created. Today, only 18 or 19 1876-CC twenty-cent pieces are known to exist.