1872-CC Dime; CC Coin of the Week - 8/14/2011

It is interesting to note that Henry Rice became fully vested as Mint Superintendent on February 24, 1871, two weeks past one year after the first coin, a Seated Liberty silver dollar, was struck in Carson City. Abraham Curry had resigned in September , 1870, in a failed bid to become Nevada’s first Lieutenant Governor. Henry Rice’s term spanned the entire year of 1872 until July 1873, when he was replaced by Frank D. Hetrich.

I reported in the Spring 2010 edition of Curry’s Chronicle, that midway through 1872, Chauncey N. Noteware replaced Granville Hosmer, as chief coiner at Carson City. Mr. Noteware apparently was very successful in his position, overseeing a 68% increase in the quantity of coinage produced at Carson City from the prior year and winning the respect of his peers.

This is Chauncey N. Noteware in 1889 when he was a Nevada State Senator. I wonder if he has an '89-CC dollar in his pocket? I don't want to think about it. :ohmy:

Rusty Goe, in his Spring 2011 Curry’s Chronicle article “The Seven 1872-CC Coins in the Battle Born Collection”, echoed that sentiment by quoting US Mint Director James Pollock’s 1872 annual report. Mr. Pollock reported “great increases in deposits” in its third year of operation”. Mr. Pollock attributed this to “evidence of the rapid development of the rich mineral resources of the region”.

Mark Archambault, in his presentation of the 1872-CC half dollar to the Coin of the Week project, on June 12, 2011, observed that this good news was reported locally by the Carson Daily Appeal. The article, said Mark, “entitled The Mint and the Carson Branch "was a review of the Philadelphia Mint’s assessment of affairs at the two year old facility.”

Mark said the Director of the Mint at Philadelphia’s remarks “close with full approval of all the changes and measures of improvements that the Superintendent Rice recommended; and with the expression of the fullest confidence in the future of the Branch Mint under the energetic and painstaking superintendence of the present manager.”

Though relatively scarce by any standard, the coins of 1872, are “…often overshadowed by the coins struck at the Carson City Mint in 1870, 1871 and 1873”. This according to Mr. Goe. This is easy to understand when you realize the total output of coins in 1870 and 1871, 307,749, was only 85% of the 1872 output. Similarly, 1873 overshadows 1872 merely by the coincidence that the two major Carson City rarities, the 1873-CC No Arrows dime and No Arrows quarter follow 1872.

So we have a portrait of 1872 as a positive step in the history of the Carson City Mint. And as the mint flourished, so did the Comstock region. Michael Parrott, The Drummer, reported in his presentation of the 1872-CC half eagle to the Coin of the Week project, on July 4, 2010, that the prolific author Samuel Clemens, pen name Mark Twain, published in 1872 his book “Roughing It” where” he described the rough and tumble halcyon days of the Comstock.” Mike concluded that “Virginia City, Nevada could easily be referred to as the “Las Vegas” of its day.”

The 1872-CC Dime.

In its second year of production, dimes reached 24,000 mintage, barely surpassing 1871 mintage of 20,100. Dime production would eventually reach a mintage of 4,645,000 in 1875 and continued unabated until it was removed from the Carson City mint agenda in 1878. Rusty Goe pointed out in his aforementioned article that there were discrepancies in the mintage figures due to the differences in calendar year and fiscal year accounting. Regardless of the mintage, Rusty concluded that, of collectible Carson City dimes, the 1872-CC dime is the rarest dime from that mint in grades above AU-55. Page 221 in The Mint on Carson Street lists one NGC AU-55, one NGC AU-58 and one PCGS MS-61. PCGS regraded that coin MS-63 and it is tucked away in the Battle Born Collection. This, no doubt was quite a coup for the owner, as ’72-CC dimes pedigreed to Eliasberg, Norweb and Boyd were all circulated specimens.

Coincidentally, according to the Heritage website, the NGC AU-55 sold two days ago on August 12, 2011 for $16,100.




Some examples of the 72'CC are known to feature a die crack through the mintmark, similar to that in the '73-CC and '74-CC. The above example does not appear to exhibit that anomaly.

So with this article, we close out the year 1872 in the Coin of the Week series. While Rusty reported that 1872 coinage was “bookended and overshadowed” by previous and immediately subsequent issues, I know that here, the authors of Coin of the Week articles depicting 1872 issues have added greatly to the knowledge and appreciation of these early Carson City Mint coins.

Garry,

From many of the messages you have posted on the C4OA's discussion board forum, I know that you frequently visit other numismatic forums on the Internet (Your recent post about a discussion about the 5 or 10 rarest "CC" coins on the Collectors' Universe Web site is one such example). I doubt whether we would find the same rich content on most of those other forums as you and the other COTW participants have contributed to this project. That's a shame, because hundreds of visitors to those other forums would benefit from reading the articles and comments posted here.

Your Coin of the Week article this week, about the 1872-CC dime, is a perfect example. You did a good job in drawing a lot of information together about the Carson Mint's output of coinage in 1872, and you effectivey interjected comments of other C4OA members to strengthen your own message. I would love to see what kind of response you, and the other COWboys, would receive if some of your COTW articles were posted on some of those other forums. I would bet that the response would be overwhelmingly positive.

You wrote:

So with this article we close out 1872 in the Coin of the Week series ... I know that here, the authors of Coin of the Week articles depicting 1872 issues have added greatly to the knowledge and appreciation of these early Carson City Mint coins.

I second these sentiments.

Thanks for your faithfulness in supporting the C4OA's discussion board and for participating in the COTW project.

Rusty

P.S. If you find a discussion board forum somewhere out there in cyberspace that offers better content than you find on the C4OA's discussion, please tell us about it.

Thanks for your kind comments, Rusty. I will be the last writer before you take it over. I am looking forward to that. My pleasure indeed.

Excellent article as always Garry!!!!! I can't believe that we are nearing the end of project. I have most certainly enjoyed everyone's contributions. I have also learned so much through the eyes of all the COWboys from pictures of their own collections and ones like you have provided from the various auction sites throughout cyberspace. That sure is one beauty 1872-CC dime that was auctioned on the 12th of August. A special thank you for including my contribution of the 1872-CC Half Dollar and the comments of the Director of the Mint in Philadelphia, it must have been a great time to be at the Carson City Mint back then. I would love to see the Battle Born Collection, that must be a sight to see for sure!!

Loosechange

Hi Garryn

A great article on one of the classic "CC" silver rarities, the 1872-CC seated dime.

I agree with Carsonite that other forums should see what we've been doing here on this C4OA blog site, particularly in regards to our COW posts. This has been an absolutely fantastic project...is there someway you could let other fans on those forums know about this? We'd all love to have them join in...see our work...and bring forth their knowledge too.

You've really done your homework here and revealed some new info I had not known about, such as the chief coiner change midway through the year.
Another great COW post!

the drummer

Garry

I just returned from a brief "no computers or phones" vacation and logged on to the C4OA web site this afternoon to read your Coin of the Week article. Well done!

You mentioned the diagnostic die crack which runs through the mint mark on one of the two varieties of 1872-CC dimes. Rusty points out that this die crack is also found on the 1873 and 1874 Carson City dimes as they used this same reverse die as was shipped to the mint for the 1872 production year.

A couple years ago, while reading a back and forth dialog between two collectors on another forum, this same diagnostic crack exposed a big mistake one of the forum participants had made. The fellow was bragging about a high grade, 1874-CC dime he had just purchased for about half of the recognized price for this extreme rarity. After quite a bit of dialog he eventually posted photos of the obverse and reverse....whoops!..no die crack running through the mint mark! I logged on and pointed out that unless he can see a die crack with his loop that was not showing up in the posted photo, he had probably just purchased a counterfeit 1874-CC dime. He did not reply as he was probably in the bathroom being sick.


Belay Off