Belay Off,
I’m glad you enjoyed my article.
You wrote:
I thought it was interesting that you referred to the 1876-CC 20c, with its heavy obverse doubling, as a variety. If all 1876-CC 20 centers are so doubled, would it still be referred to as a variety for the year, or would it simply be a variety for the series?
Variety is a generic term; it can be used to describe many concepts. In the strictest numismatic sense, when Bill Bugert, for instance, is talking about variety attributions he is referring to different die marriages for different dates in the Seated half dollar series. For him, the terms “die marriage” and “variety” are synonymous. So when he says only one die marriage is known for the 1878-CC half dollar, he means there is only one variety for this date. He is not saying this variety is unusual or fits into the error-coin category.
Similarly, Breen and other numismatic writers, including Doug Winter, use the expression, “only one variety known,” which technically might be unnecessary, but shows the broader use of the term variety. See, for example, in Doug Winter’s “CC” gold coin book the listing for 1878-CC $10 gold pieces. He says there is just one die variety known for this date.
In Breen’s encyclopedia glossary, he defines variety as follows: “Any coin recognizably different in dies from another of the same design, type, date, and mint.” Another definition of variety (non-numismatic) is, “A category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality.”
Other words we could substitute for the word variety are type, sort, kind, species, strain, form of, style, and peculiarity.
In my
Curry’s article, when I include the 1876-CC twenty-cent piece in my discussion of “CC” Coins and Varieties, I use the term variety in the broadest sense. Examples of this classic rarity are recognizably different from the intended design the chief designer submitted, and probably what appeared on the master hub. The changed elements (i.e. the doubling, raised die lines, etc.) differed from the original design.
Breen even calls the 1876-CC twenty-cent piece a DOUBLE LIBERTY, in effect christening it as a variety without actually using the term “variety.” He claims that only one set of dies was used (out of the six obverse and four reverse dies shipped to Carson City) to strike the 1876-CC twenty-cent pieces. This we don’t know for sure, since nearly 99.8% of the original mintage was melted, and we don’t have the Carson Mint’s coiner or superintendent reports to verify when the 10,000 pieces were struck, and if it happened in one or multiple days. (It is possible that non-Double LIBERTY pieces were struck, although we’ll probably never know.)
Perhaps the Carson Mint did strike non-Double LIBERTY 1876-CC twenty-cent pieces. Because of this date’s rarity, no one has ever produced a study on different varieties of the 18 – 19 pieces known. When I owned three examples of this date at the same time, I saw subtle differences in characteristics that an analytical person could have made a case for putting them in sub-variety categories—although the major diagnostic on all three was the Double LIBERTY.
When I wrote in my
Curry’s article, “The most striking display of diagnostics on a Carson City coin is seen on all known examples (18 or 19) of the 1876-CC twenty-cent piece,” I wanted to interject this special coin’s incredible characteristics to the discussion on anomalies in the “CC” coin series. To avoid confusion, perhaps I should have titled this section, “’CC’ Coins and Diagnostic Anomalies.”
So when you ask, “Would it still be referred to as a variety for the year, or would it simply be a variety for the series?” The answers are “Yes and No, depending on whose definition of variety we are referring to: It could, in the spirit of Breen, Winter, and Bugert, be classified as ‘The only known variety for the date.’” and “Definitely Yes—The coin is too special not to give it recognition.”
And I might add, we can certainly call it a variety in terms of it being a variation of the norm when compared to the original design as submitted by the designer, and as it probably appeared on the working hub.
I hope these comments answer your questions.
Rusty
