1872-CC $10 Gold Coin of the Week, 02/13/2011

Recently when I began researching some of the different facts available about the United States in 1872 and the Carson City Gold Eagles minted in this same year, I was pleasantly surprised at the wealth of knowledge and enjoyment one is able to extract from the various available resources when completing such an article. At the annual Coin show held at the Carson City Mint this past August 2010, I was looking through a box filled with vintage paper items that a dealer had stuffed at the foot of his table when an old check from the Carson City Savings Bank dated April 12th, 1878 caught my eye. It was payment for a deposit of two hundred dollars in United States gold coin at the bank. I was fascinated when I noticed that depicted on the front of the check is an image of a U.S. Coronet gold coin dated 1870 along with an eagle. (See image below) Finding this Bank check certainly has sparked my interests more than ever about Carson City Gold Coins!


In the United States Presidential election of 1872, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant was easily elected to a second term in office with Senator Henry Wilson as his running mate, despite a split within the Republican Party that resulted in a defection of many Liberal Republicans to his opponent Horace Greeley. On November 29th 1872, after the popular vote but before the Electoral College cast its votes, Greeley passed away. It is so far the only election in which a Presidential candidate died during the electoral process . Interestingly enough, Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War General and 18th President of the United States eventually was even the first United States President to visit Nevada but this was not to occur until October of 1879.

1872 also held the closing arguments of Adolph Sutro on the bill before Congress to loan and give aid to the construction project of the Sutro Tunnel. The Sutro Tunnel is a drainage tunnel connected to the Comstock Lode in Northern Nevada. It begins at Virginia City, Nevada and empties approximately six miles southeast near the town of Dayton, Nevada. The Sutro Tunnel pioneered the excavation of large drainage and access tunnels in the United States.

Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens also completed and published his American literary classic titled, “Roughing It” which follows Twain’s travels through to the Wild West and Nevada where he even became a Journalist for the Territorial Enterprise, a Virginia City Nevada Newspaper. As Michael (Drummer) said in his post on the 1872-cc Half Eagle, “Virginia City Nevada could easily be referred to as the Las Vegas of its day!”

And 1872 to the collectors of Carson City coins certainly was a year in which the Mint located at 600 North Carson Street produced some of the rarest and most desirable Gold Eagles of which “CC enthusiasts” can only hope to obtain and add to their collections today!


Abraham Curry, the first Superintendent of the Carson City Mint resigned in 1870 to run in a campaign for Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada, a race in which he lost. H.F. Rice, a local Wells Fargo agent was appointed as the new Superintendent at the “CC” Mint and he held the title until he resigned a few years later due to controversy regarding some lightweight debased coins dated 1872-cc and 1873-cc that were discovered. It certainly is a possibility that some of the 1872-cc Eagles minted were part of this investigation. Noted in “The Mint on Carson Street” by Rusty Goe, it is believed that Rice committed suicide a short while after in 1877

The winter of 1871/1872 saw huge amounts of snow which caused a blockage of the Union Pacific Railroad which in turn held up delivery of the dies for 1872. Per the notes in the story of the United States Mint at Carson City Nevada by Howard Hickson , Superintendent Rice borrowed a set of Obverse dies from the San Francisco Mint and struck only one side of the coins. On February 19th the new dies arrived and the reverse of these coins were finished. I am assuming none of these coins struck with the San Francisco dies were Gold Eagles as all the references I have been able to locate indicate no Eagles were struck until July of 1872 but it certainly is quite interesting nonetheless.

Another notable story at the Carson City Mint was when tragedy struck in December of 1872. Osborne Parker was working alone in the sweep amalgamating room in the basement when somehow his sweater was caught between a large wheel and belt and he was crushed against the ceiling. Other employees heard his cries but Mr. Parker died within minutes after he was extracted from the wheel. This was the only death to have occurred at the Carson City Mint

The 1872-cc Coronet or “Liberty Head” design type with In God we Trust above Eagle is considered to be about the fourth rarest date in the series of “cc” Gold Eagles that lasted nineteen different years in total following only the 1870-cc, 1879-cc and 1878-cc in rarity and the 1872-cc also has the fifth lowest mintage of all of the “cc” Gold Eagles. Mintage estimates for the 72-cc Eagle vary between 4,600 and 5,500 depending on which reference you are looking at. The only detailed statistics I could locate were in Walter Breen’s complete encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins which indicates that 1100 were minted in July, 1600 in September and 1900 in December. In an article in the Rare Coin review dated Nov/Dec 2002, Q. David Bowers notes some hits and misses about Breen’s work. The article mentions that Breen often committed too much to memory and how he often made a huge number of assumptions and guesses, particularly in the area of mintage figures

Christian Gobrecht is credited with the design along with James B. Longacre being noted for the added motto in the scroll. Metal composition is comprised of .900 in Gold and .100 in Copper and the weight is listed as approximately 16.718 grams with a reeded edge and measuring about 27mm in diameter. Despite the conflicting mintage totals it does seem to be pretty much agreed amongst all references that less than 100 examples survive in all grades today. In “Gold Coins of the Carson City Mint” by Douglas Winter/edited by James Halperin it is noted that the strike is almost always seen with a soft Obverse and flat stars. The Reverse is usually better struck than the Obverse but almost all examples seen show noticeable abrasions, wear and very few are seen with any natural color.

The 1872 Carson City Eagle has two known varieties. The first has a fairly even cc mintmark and in the second variety the first c in the mintmark is higher than the second c, which makes the two easy to distinguish from one another and also as this second variety mintmark is positioned closer to the arrow feathers . It is not known if the different varieties are related to the different months in which the 72-cc Eagles were struck. Some examples seen from a second die state are known with doubling on the reverse most noticeable on STA in STATES and also some doubling on the Eagles left Wing tip. Several “CC” Eagle dates are unknown in Mint State condition and the 72-cc is amongst them. The highest graded that I have been able to find any record of are a few AU-55 and AU-58 examples listed in the population reports at the major grading services.

Some recent major auction prices realized for 72-cc Eagles were as follows

PCGS F-15 January 2011 – price realized $6,900
NGC AU-55 January 2011 – price realized $21,275
NGC AU-55 August 2010 CAC sticker – price realized $27,600
PCGS EF-45 March 2010 – price realized $12,650

Just a few years ago you could have purchased a 72-cc Gold Eagle example for the following

PCGS VF-25 April 2006 – price realized $5,750
ANACS VF-20 January 2002 – price realized $1,840
PCGS VF-30 October 2001 – price realized $2,415

One example I have just seen recently listed for sale- an NGC graded AU-50 example priced to sell at $21,500

Current Coin Values as of January 2011 list the 72-cc Eagles as the following varying price ranges
F-12 $2,000, VF-20 ($2,850 to $3,250), EF40 ($9,850 to $10.500), EF-45 $20,000, AU50 ($22,500 to $24,500) and AU55 at $26,500 (personally, I would be overjoyed to say the least if I was able to locate a problem free F-12 example for just $2,000!)

Obviously the values of such coins can continue to change based on their availability and as the interest and demand grows for any of these desirable “cc” dates. 1872-cc Gold Eagles from the Carson City Nevada Mint are a tough coin all around but when researching the cost factors of these pieces it is clearly noticeable that they have always shown increasing values over each decade. It can also be said that whatever the correct mintage total may be between 4,600 and 5,500, the 1872-cc is just a small percentage of the almost 300,000 total Ten dollar “cc” Gold Eagles produced over the course of the 19 different years in total mintage figures.

You can also add in the fact that most interest in collecting by Mint Marks did not even become popular enough until around 1890 and that these few remaining treasured specimens that exist in our collections today should continue to trend upwards in prices while always retaining their amazing historic values.

Please note this coin of the week story on the 1872-cc Eagle is my first try as such on this online forum for the 111-week project. It is my hope that you have enjoyed reading through this information as much as I have enjoyed posting it for you!

posted just prior to Sunrise on Sunday February 13th, 2011
by Tom DeFina

Wow! Great article Tom and super informative. The piece of the article that says the obverse of the coin was struck and when the reverse dies arrived that reverse of the coin was finished truly fascinates me. How was that process done? Thanks Tom and welcome to the "COW boys."

Loosechange

Tom,

Whoa, you shot out of the starting gate with your first COTW post like a steaming V & T locomotive zooming across the trestle. You followed the fine tradition of insightful coverage established by the other COWboy posters.

I really like the way you provided price information for this date in grades from lowest to highest, and how you encouraged others to seek out an example in whatever price range their budgets allow. I think you are right on when you say the 1872-CC eagle will rise in value in the future.

You passed the test and are a welcome addition to the team of faithful contributors to this noble 111-week project. Congratulations!

Rusty

P.S. - I can see you learned much about formatting your posting from the tutorials Nicole at Southgate has given you. You are a good student.

Thank you to everyone for all the encouragement, tutorials, and for creating such a discussion board where we can all share our "CC" passions together! Sometimes I just like to put on my thinking cap and somehow the words all seem to just come together!

Hi deepsouthspike and welcome to the world of COW posting!

You certainly have earned your stripes with this premiere article of yours. It is extremely well done...very informative....packed full of the history I personally love so much and complete with a bevy of amazing pictures.

Welcome to the range COWboy....I can't wait to see more of your future articles!

Now, I gotta go and get me one them thar 1872-CC eagles before they go and fly even higher $$$!!

Michael the drummer

Oh wow Love that Cat Cat!