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1876-CC Trade $ DDR CC Coin of the Week 1-10-10
14 years 9 months ago - 14 years 9 months ago #770
by Belayoff
DOUBLED DIE REVERSE VARIETY
In 1876, one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence and eighty four years after the United States government minted its first official “Federal” coin, this country’s monetary system had turned into a complicated mess. Even with a reference book in front of me, this writer sometimes has difficulty understanding exactly which money could be tendered legally, or exchanged for silver and gold, monetized, bullionized or redeemed for currency in the form of, legal tender, silver certificate, fractional notes or postage stamps.
To make matters worse, the plethora of Coin Acts passed over the years by Congress, were frequently incompatible since legislators many times failed to repeal out dated laws when designing new ones to replace them. As the “Centennial Year” began, it’s not surprising that in addition to the many celebrations our government officials had planned, they also found themselves defending the Federal government against a host of law suits, most related, in one way or the other, to the Trade Dollar.
Trade dollars solved the problem of acceptance of US coins in payment of oversees trade goods. At the same time, these impressive “silver dollars” created serious problems for the US public, in part, due to the coin’s strange monetary status. Other than business people, the average citizen in America probably had a difficult time understanding why one million US Trade Dollars could buy one million dollars worth of Chinese silk, yet the coins were not legal tender for transactions over five dollars at the local mercantile?
For starters, the Trade Dollar should have been clearly designed to look like a commodity, not like a US silver dollar. Instead it was a dead ringer for real money stamped as it was with familiar words like, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”, “E PLURIBUS UNUM”, and especially “ONE DOLLAR”. After all, if it walks like a duck…?!
With the price of silver bullion declining in 1876, the problems associated with the coin began widening, domestically as well as off shore. At the same time, the three US Mints producing Trade Dollars cranked out a whopping 6,191,000 of the coins in 1876. The Carson City mint produced 509,000 of this total in addition to almost two million silver half dollars, about five million silver quarters and over eight million silver dimes. With such a large volume of business, the workers at the Carson City Mint in 1876 were likely to have been blissfully unaware of the problems looming over this coin.
The Act of July 22, 1876 demonetized the Trade Dollar domestically once and for all, thereby voiding even the coin’s pitiful $5 per transaction status. This Act, together with the ever-increasing glut of silver world wide, applied additional downward pressure on the value of raw silver. Soon our foreign trading partners, already buried in silver, required increasingly large discounts when silver Trade Dollars were used for payment. Other merchants simply rejected any commerce based on the exchange of silver, demanding payment in gold instead. This commercial refusal, in turn, caused millions more Trade Dollars to somehow get dumped back into America’s domestic lap.
In those parts of rural America still using dial-up internet services in 1876, news of congressional legislation arrived slowly. The “meaning of it all”, was even slower to absorb into collective public awareness. Employers who, by the very nature of commercial trading, were made aware early of the path that silver was taking, sometimes using the knowledge dishonestly to gain an advantage. Their agents would purchase Trade Dollars in the larger cities at a material discount based on low silver bullion value. The coins would then be shipped to Smallville, USA where the employer surreptitiously included them at par dollar value in the pay envelopes for their workers.
Even though this flagrant violation of Federal law is frequently described in texts about US Trade Dollars, I have not yet read where any employers were taken to task and prosecuted. Regardless, at the end of the day, when the value of silver fell through the floor, the American public was left holding the bag…and the bag was filled with Trade Dollars.
One hundred and thirty four years later, the term Trade Dollar is no longer spoken with a sneer and a spat to the ground. Instead, the 1876-CC Trade Dollar I plan to write about is a revered numismatic rarity, respected for its place in US history and touted today, as a worthy “Carson City Coin of the Week”.
When in 2003 Rusty Goe published his book, The Mint On Carson Street, he estimated there were 1,000 to 1,500 1876 CC Trade Dollars remaining in all grades combined. Of this total, Rusty felt that only 50 to 75 (4% to 5%) existed in mint state condition. This figure makes the 1876-CC Trade Dollar together with the 1873-CC Trade Dollar, by far the most difficult date to collect in the series, especially in uncirculated condition.
Interestingly, both PCGS and NGC estimate there exist one third to one fifth LESS examples of this date in all grades, than does Rusty Goe. My research did not point to the reason for this disparity. Perhaps we can impose upon Rusty to post a brief explanation about why PCGS and NGC are so far off in their estimates.
I have spent quite a bit of time researching this date, in particular, the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse variety and have reviewed a fairly large number of the coins thus far, albeit mostly via photographs and not in person. There was one fact repeatedly identified and common between almost every coin…they were simply unattractive. The following is a comment paraphrased from Rusty Goe’s “The Mint on Carson Street”; “Even the majority of MS-63s and MS-64s are quite ugly and some display hideous artificial toning”. Accordingly, I must place myself among a very few fortunate owners who have collected an attractive 1876-CC Trade Dollar (see photograph). Even better, mine is the Doubled Die variety!
All 1876-CC Trade Dollars were minted with the same Obverse die which had been used since 1873. Additionally, a single Reverse die was used from 1873 to sometime in 1875 when complaints of strike imperfections from Chief Coiner, A.L. Snowden, led to the die’s redesign. Chief engraver, William Barber, had designed the first Reverse die (Type 1) with thin berries and somewhat broad leaves. Diagnostically, one of the berries is easily identified below the eagle’s claw. His redesign of the Reverse die in 1875 corrected the weak strike characteristics with the eagle’s claws and the berries. Additionally, the new Reverse die (Type 2) no longer displayed a berry below the claw. The redesigned berries were also more rounded and the leaves just a bit narrower. Both Obverse One with Reverse One (T1/T1) and Obverse One married with Reverse Two (T1/T2) varieties are found in 1875-CC and in 1876-CC Trade Dollars.
There are also four different styles of CC mint mark in 1876, though most texts report just three. The most common references discuss three mint mark designs described as small (micro), medium and tall. The fourth style of CC mint mark is actually a very minute (.2mm) difference in the spacing between the CCs of the medium sized mint marks only of the T1/T1 variety as compared with the medium sized mint mark of the T1/T2 variety. Got that? There will be a test later.
All 1876 CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollars are of the T1/T1 with the tall CC mint mark. As coin varieties go, the 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar takes the prize for drama and it’s sheer, jaw dropping amount of doubled features. Of the total population of 1876-CC Trade Dollars, about 20% are of the Doubled Die Reverse variety. Accordingly, based on Rusty Goe’s calculations, there are no more than 60 or 70 of these unique coins in existence.
The doubling on the 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar is truly spectacular. If you’ve never studied one with a loop, then you have a real treat in store, I assure you. The most common statement made about the doubling can be found used in most every text that mentions the ’76-CC DDR T$ as follows;
“This is probably the strongest and most widely spaced doubled die known to any series. The reverse die shows dramatic doubling on the eagle’s left wing (on the right side of the coin), the branches, berries, leaves, and much of the lettering.”
And;
“Doubling is evident on the branches on the right, the eagle’s talons, the right wing tip, eagles beak, and is very strong on E PLURIBUS UNUM. Weaker doubling can be detected on UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”
Once I began to really study the coin, I found these stock statements and descriptions to be sorely wanting. I took the time to observe every single feather and element involved in the devices of this coins reverse with a five and then ten power loop. When counting all features showing doubling, I am confident that there are easily a hundred or more on this coin.
Doubling is easily observable under 60% to 70% of the major feathers on both wings and breast of the Eagle not just the well known left and right wing tip doubling. Also, the all important diagnostic berry below the claw is clearly doubled as are portions of the eagle’s toes, talons, long neck feathers, head, tongue, beak, nostril and of course the oft-referred to “whisker” which is actually the doubled outline of the lower beak. My coin even shows a doubled eye ball!
The doubled letters of E PLURIBUS UNUM are very dramatic on this coin as on most examples of the 1876 CC DDR Trade dollar. On the subject coin, each doubled letter begins about half way down its mate. Overall, 40% to 50% of each doubled letter can be observed. The fact that the underlying ribbon stands proud above the surface may be the only thing that kept the lower half of doubled E PLURIBUS UNUM from being impressed upon the flat surface below the ribbon. In between many of the letters and the words the doubled top rim of the ribbon can be seen. With a 10 power loop, the doubling can also be faintly made out in the lower curled portion at each end of ribbon.
Most of the doubling in numbers and letters of 420 GRAINS, 900 FINE starts about one third of the way down each character, with the doubled letters of GRA providing the strongest showing. Here, only the top 10% to 20% (or less) of the doubled lettering can be clearly seen with the central and lower portions of the doubled letters invisible. Easily seen as well is the doubling on all three of the arrow shafts, two of the arrow heads and portions of the arrow feathers. Even the comma after GRAINS, the period after AMERICA and the period after DOLLAR all display shape inconsistencies exactly where the doubling should be.
Another very interesting diagnostic feature of the 1876 CC DDR Trade Dollar is the large number of broken letters**. James Sneddon has described these in one of his articles for Curry’s Chronicle, but not to the extent that is observed with this coin. Not only are many of the letters seemingly repaired (per Sneddon’s observations) but the letters in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and to a lesser extent in TRADE DOLLAR, have so many broken serifs that I do not think there are more than a few 100% whole letters remaining. I count at least 15 broken points on this coin’s legend alone! The repaired letters when observed under 10 power loop appear to have a thin line of metal added on the out side edges of several letters, as if to hold in the guts of the letter.
The subject MS 60 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar is Graded MS 60 by NGC. The coin has bright and lustrous surfaces which are highly reflective. Both the obverse and reverse display a light golden hue which is strongest towards the outer edges. Light reflects in dramatic cartwheels from both sides of the coin. If this were not enough, Ms Liberty is framed with deep cobalt blue edge toning circling about half the perimeter on the obverse and less on the reverse. The strike is exceptionally crisp, especially given the late die state this coin appears to be.
The grading services indicate that the 1876-CC Trade dollar can be purchased for as little as $200 in the lowest grades. There is a modest premium for the DDR variety in the lower grades and a rather stiff spike to acquire the DDR in AU or above, especially for an attractive coin with eye appeal.
PCGS prices the top graded example of the 1876-CC Trade Dollar, a single MS-65 at $85,000. I find that interesting since there is only one gem ’76 CC Trade Dollar in existence and it’s owned by Bruce Morelan, aka “The Trade Dollar Nut”. The coin resides in his “Legend Collection” of Mint State Trade Dollars. This coin was formerly the 1876-CC Trade Dollar example in the Eliasberg Collection as well. Given its pedigree and its singularity, I doubt that Mr. Morelan would return a phone call for an $85,000 offer even if the coin were for sale, which it is not.
I’ve developed a true appreciation for the dramatic Trade Dollars minted in Carson City, especially the Doubled Die Reverse variety. If you too are interested in the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollar, check out my detailed article in the Spring, 2009 edition of Curry’s Chronicle entitled;
“A Thing or Two About the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollar -or- Be Careful What You Ask as You Just Might Get an Answer.”
Some of the information in this posting is from that article. If you do read the Curry’s Chronicle article, you’ll understand why I end it thusly: “Y’all can keep the other 508,000 Trade Dollars minted in Carson City during 1876…this one is going no where soon!!
Belay Off
C4OA Lifer!
1876-CC Trade $ DDR CC Coin of the Week 1-10-10 was created by Belayoff
DOUBLED DIE REVERSE VARIETY
In 1876, one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence and eighty four years after the United States government minted its first official “Federal” coin, this country’s monetary system had turned into a complicated mess. Even with a reference book in front of me, this writer sometimes has difficulty understanding exactly which money could be tendered legally, or exchanged for silver and gold, monetized, bullionized or redeemed for currency in the form of, legal tender, silver certificate, fractional notes or postage stamps.
To make matters worse, the plethora of Coin Acts passed over the years by Congress, were frequently incompatible since legislators many times failed to repeal out dated laws when designing new ones to replace them. As the “Centennial Year” began, it’s not surprising that in addition to the many celebrations our government officials had planned, they also found themselves defending the Federal government against a host of law suits, most related, in one way or the other, to the Trade Dollar.
Trade dollars solved the problem of acceptance of US coins in payment of oversees trade goods. At the same time, these impressive “silver dollars” created serious problems for the US public, in part, due to the coin’s strange monetary status. Other than business people, the average citizen in America probably had a difficult time understanding why one million US Trade Dollars could buy one million dollars worth of Chinese silk, yet the coins were not legal tender for transactions over five dollars at the local mercantile?
For starters, the Trade Dollar should have been clearly designed to look like a commodity, not like a US silver dollar. Instead it was a dead ringer for real money stamped as it was with familiar words like, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”, “E PLURIBUS UNUM”, and especially “ONE DOLLAR”. After all, if it walks like a duck…?!
With the price of silver bullion declining in 1876, the problems associated with the coin began widening, domestically as well as off shore. At the same time, the three US Mints producing Trade Dollars cranked out a whopping 6,191,000 of the coins in 1876. The Carson City mint produced 509,000 of this total in addition to almost two million silver half dollars, about five million silver quarters and over eight million silver dimes. With such a large volume of business, the workers at the Carson City Mint in 1876 were likely to have been blissfully unaware of the problems looming over this coin.
The Act of July 22, 1876 demonetized the Trade Dollar domestically once and for all, thereby voiding even the coin’s pitiful $5 per transaction status. This Act, together with the ever-increasing glut of silver world wide, applied additional downward pressure on the value of raw silver. Soon our foreign trading partners, already buried in silver, required increasingly large discounts when silver Trade Dollars were used for payment. Other merchants simply rejected any commerce based on the exchange of silver, demanding payment in gold instead. This commercial refusal, in turn, caused millions more Trade Dollars to somehow get dumped back into America’s domestic lap.
In those parts of rural America still using dial-up internet services in 1876, news of congressional legislation arrived slowly. The “meaning of it all”, was even slower to absorb into collective public awareness. Employers who, by the very nature of commercial trading, were made aware early of the path that silver was taking, sometimes using the knowledge dishonestly to gain an advantage. Their agents would purchase Trade Dollars in the larger cities at a material discount based on low silver bullion value. The coins would then be shipped to Smallville, USA where the employer surreptitiously included them at par dollar value in the pay envelopes for their workers.
Even though this flagrant violation of Federal law is frequently described in texts about US Trade Dollars, I have not yet read where any employers were taken to task and prosecuted. Regardless, at the end of the day, when the value of silver fell through the floor, the American public was left holding the bag…and the bag was filled with Trade Dollars.
One hundred and thirty four years later, the term Trade Dollar is no longer spoken with a sneer and a spat to the ground. Instead, the 1876-CC Trade Dollar I plan to write about is a revered numismatic rarity, respected for its place in US history and touted today, as a worthy “Carson City Coin of the Week”.
When in 2003 Rusty Goe published his book, The Mint On Carson Street, he estimated there were 1,000 to 1,500 1876 CC Trade Dollars remaining in all grades combined. Of this total, Rusty felt that only 50 to 75 (4% to 5%) existed in mint state condition. This figure makes the 1876-CC Trade Dollar together with the 1873-CC Trade Dollar, by far the most difficult date to collect in the series, especially in uncirculated condition.
Interestingly, both PCGS and NGC estimate there exist one third to one fifth LESS examples of this date in all grades, than does Rusty Goe. My research did not point to the reason for this disparity. Perhaps we can impose upon Rusty to post a brief explanation about why PCGS and NGC are so far off in their estimates.
I have spent quite a bit of time researching this date, in particular, the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse variety and have reviewed a fairly large number of the coins thus far, albeit mostly via photographs and not in person. There was one fact repeatedly identified and common between almost every coin…they were simply unattractive. The following is a comment paraphrased from Rusty Goe’s “The Mint on Carson Street”; “Even the majority of MS-63s and MS-64s are quite ugly and some display hideous artificial toning”. Accordingly, I must place myself among a very few fortunate owners who have collected an attractive 1876-CC Trade Dollar (see photograph). Even better, mine is the Doubled Die variety!
All 1876-CC Trade Dollars were minted with the same Obverse die which had been used since 1873. Additionally, a single Reverse die was used from 1873 to sometime in 1875 when complaints of strike imperfections from Chief Coiner, A.L. Snowden, led to the die’s redesign. Chief engraver, William Barber, had designed the first Reverse die (Type 1) with thin berries and somewhat broad leaves. Diagnostically, one of the berries is easily identified below the eagle’s claw. His redesign of the Reverse die in 1875 corrected the weak strike characteristics with the eagle’s claws and the berries. Additionally, the new Reverse die (Type 2) no longer displayed a berry below the claw. The redesigned berries were also more rounded and the leaves just a bit narrower. Both Obverse One with Reverse One (T1/T1) and Obverse One married with Reverse Two (T1/T2) varieties are found in 1875-CC and in 1876-CC Trade Dollars.
There are also four different styles of CC mint mark in 1876, though most texts report just three. The most common references discuss three mint mark designs described as small (micro), medium and tall. The fourth style of CC mint mark is actually a very minute (.2mm) difference in the spacing between the CCs of the medium sized mint marks only of the T1/T1 variety as compared with the medium sized mint mark of the T1/T2 variety. Got that? There will be a test later.
All 1876 CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollars are of the T1/T1 with the tall CC mint mark. As coin varieties go, the 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar takes the prize for drama and it’s sheer, jaw dropping amount of doubled features. Of the total population of 1876-CC Trade Dollars, about 20% are of the Doubled Die Reverse variety. Accordingly, based on Rusty Goe’s calculations, there are no more than 60 or 70 of these unique coins in existence.
The doubling on the 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar is truly spectacular. If you’ve never studied one with a loop, then you have a real treat in store, I assure you. The most common statement made about the doubling can be found used in most every text that mentions the ’76-CC DDR T$ as follows;
“This is probably the strongest and most widely spaced doubled die known to any series. The reverse die shows dramatic doubling on the eagle’s left wing (on the right side of the coin), the branches, berries, leaves, and much of the lettering.”
And;
“Doubling is evident on the branches on the right, the eagle’s talons, the right wing tip, eagles beak, and is very strong on E PLURIBUS UNUM. Weaker doubling can be detected on UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”
Once I began to really study the coin, I found these stock statements and descriptions to be sorely wanting. I took the time to observe every single feather and element involved in the devices of this coins reverse with a five and then ten power loop. When counting all features showing doubling, I am confident that there are easily a hundred or more on this coin.
Doubling is easily observable under 60% to 70% of the major feathers on both wings and breast of the Eagle not just the well known left and right wing tip doubling. Also, the all important diagnostic berry below the claw is clearly doubled as are portions of the eagle’s toes, talons, long neck feathers, head, tongue, beak, nostril and of course the oft-referred to “whisker” which is actually the doubled outline of the lower beak. My coin even shows a doubled eye ball!
The doubled letters of E PLURIBUS UNUM are very dramatic on this coin as on most examples of the 1876 CC DDR Trade dollar. On the subject coin, each doubled letter begins about half way down its mate. Overall, 40% to 50% of each doubled letter can be observed. The fact that the underlying ribbon stands proud above the surface may be the only thing that kept the lower half of doubled E PLURIBUS UNUM from being impressed upon the flat surface below the ribbon. In between many of the letters and the words the doubled top rim of the ribbon can be seen. With a 10 power loop, the doubling can also be faintly made out in the lower curled portion at each end of ribbon.
Most of the doubling in numbers and letters of 420 GRAINS, 900 FINE starts about one third of the way down each character, with the doubled letters of GRA providing the strongest showing. Here, only the top 10% to 20% (or less) of the doubled lettering can be clearly seen with the central and lower portions of the doubled letters invisible. Easily seen as well is the doubling on all three of the arrow shafts, two of the arrow heads and portions of the arrow feathers. Even the comma after GRAINS, the period after AMERICA and the period after DOLLAR all display shape inconsistencies exactly where the doubling should be.
Another very interesting diagnostic feature of the 1876 CC DDR Trade Dollar is the large number of broken letters**. James Sneddon has described these in one of his articles for Curry’s Chronicle, but not to the extent that is observed with this coin. Not only are many of the letters seemingly repaired (per Sneddon’s observations) but the letters in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and to a lesser extent in TRADE DOLLAR, have so many broken serifs that I do not think there are more than a few 100% whole letters remaining. I count at least 15 broken points on this coin’s legend alone! The repaired letters when observed under 10 power loop appear to have a thin line of metal added on the out side edges of several letters, as if to hold in the guts of the letter.
The subject MS 60 1876-CC DDR Trade Dollar is Graded MS 60 by NGC. The coin has bright and lustrous surfaces which are highly reflective. Both the obverse and reverse display a light golden hue which is strongest towards the outer edges. Light reflects in dramatic cartwheels from both sides of the coin. If this were not enough, Ms Liberty is framed with deep cobalt blue edge toning circling about half the perimeter on the obverse and less on the reverse. The strike is exceptionally crisp, especially given the late die state this coin appears to be.
The grading services indicate that the 1876-CC Trade dollar can be purchased for as little as $200 in the lowest grades. There is a modest premium for the DDR variety in the lower grades and a rather stiff spike to acquire the DDR in AU or above, especially for an attractive coin with eye appeal.
PCGS prices the top graded example of the 1876-CC Trade Dollar, a single MS-65 at $85,000. I find that interesting since there is only one gem ’76 CC Trade Dollar in existence and it’s owned by Bruce Morelan, aka “The Trade Dollar Nut”. The coin resides in his “Legend Collection” of Mint State Trade Dollars. This coin was formerly the 1876-CC Trade Dollar example in the Eliasberg Collection as well. Given its pedigree and its singularity, I doubt that Mr. Morelan would return a phone call for an $85,000 offer even if the coin were for sale, which it is not.
I’ve developed a true appreciation for the dramatic Trade Dollars minted in Carson City, especially the Doubled Die Reverse variety. If you too are interested in the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollar, check out my detailed article in the Spring, 2009 edition of Curry’s Chronicle entitled;
“A Thing or Two About the 1876-CC Doubled Die Reverse Trade Dollar -or- Be Careful What You Ask as You Just Might Get an Answer.”
Some of the information in this posting is from that article. If you do read the Curry’s Chronicle article, you’ll understand why I end it thusly: “Y’all can keep the other 508,000 Trade Dollars minted in Carson City during 1876…this one is going no where soon!!
Belay Off
C4OA Lifer!
Last edit: 14 years 9 months ago by marie.
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