By Rusty Goe

A historian named Gilman Ostrander wrote a book about Nevada. He told in the introduction, how he had spent many months in the researching and writing of it. He said he sent his finished manuscript to two scholars for review. He thanked them for their “politely written critiques [which had] rescued [me] from my ignorance in many places.” In spite of all his painstaking research and the high goals he had set for himself for accuracy, he still had much to discover—he called it his need to be “rescued from his ignorance.” He viewed it in a positive way.

And so should we all. None of us wants to be ignorant in our field of study or in our pastime. When we think of our journey, though, as a continual process of discovery, we will welcome the many “rescues” we receive along the way. 

We have just witnessed what I think history will record as one of the single greatest events in Carson City coin collecting: the sale of the Battle Born collection. It is my hope that everything this event embodies will inspire us, and many others, to discover all we can about what I believe is one of the most exciting fields of study in numismatics.

The fact that the collection existed, that it was auctioned in Philadelphia, and that it set many price records, gives us cause to celebrate and to reflect on why many collectors in the past, in the present, and in the future have enjoyed, do enjoy, and will enjoy Carson City coins. Let this symbolic Battle Born set guide us to new paths of discovery.

Space does not permit me to share more about my own journey of discovery. All I will say is, the more I’ve learned the more I’ve realized I don’t know. Still, I’ve come to count every “rescue from my ignorance” as a blessing. Numismatics is a science, and we as “scientists” should always be engaged in research, discovering new information, correcting false information, and building upon the work of others.

In this article I will share about other people I have discovered along the way. Two of them that I’ve learned about on my journey are emblematic of what I believe the Carson City Mint and its coins stand for. One I had the honor to meet and become friends with, the other I have come to know through my research.

Interestingly, these two men arrived in Carson City 100 years apart. One, I will mention only briefly, and the other one I will share personal memories about.

First is Abraham Curry. Not a numismatist: but would we even be studying the Carson City Mint and its coins if not for him? Originally from New York, and at one time a resident of Cleveland, Curry moved to Carson City from California’s Gold Rush country sometime around July 1858. The small population living there at the time called the area Eagle Ranch. By September 1858, after Curry and his partners had constructed some buildings, the townsfolk called the place Carson City. Three years later, the small community became the capital of the new territory of Nevada. And three years after that, in October 1864, it became the capital of the new state of Nevada. Less than six years later, in 1870, the branch mint opened there—all of this happened within 12 years after Curry had first laid foot in the location.

Hal Dunn

One hundred years after Curry had first settled in Carson City, an important numismatic figure in terms of the Nevada mint’s legacy arrived in that same town. It was 1958 and the person I want to share with you about, Hal Dunn, was 23 years old. Originally from Connecticut, Hal had also lived in Washington, DC, and California.

As it turned out, he had picked an eventful year to move to Carson City. The museum there, housed in the old Carson City Mint building, was in the midst of a revitalization program. Early in 1958, the museum received back the old coin press, which Curry had installed for the mint’s opening in 1870. It had been sent to the Philadelphia Mint after the Carson branch ceased coining operations in the 1890s, and had wound up at the San Francisco Mint.

Under the supervision of Nevada Judge Clark Guild, the chairman of the board at the museum, the Carson City Mint Room was renovated in spring 1958, to further enhance the coin press’s presence.

It was an exciting time for the 7,500 or so residents of Nevada’s capital city that year.

Young Hal Dunn, who would become acquainted with Judge Guild, took an immediate interest in all things related to the Carson City Mint. A more determined discoverer did not exist.

I met Hal 43 years after he had moved to Carson City. He was living in Elko, Nevada at the time. I had seen his name on pamphlets he had authored over the years, and in references to Carson City and Nevada-related collectibles. In the brief five years that we were friends—before he died in October 2006—we exchanged information about what we had learned about our mutual passion.

Hal stood about six feet tall. When he would come striding into a room wearing his signature cowboy boots and his belt with a buckle that displayed a “CC” gold coin, you got the impression that someone from Nevada’s glorious past had just arrived. Once you heard his deep baritone voice, you would never forget it. He and Johnny Cash had something in common that way.

Hal collected anything he could find (and afford) that was related to the Carson City Mint and to Nevada’s history in general. He had a modest “CC” coin collection, but he also had lots of memorabilia. His paper collection included historical documents, old photographs, Carson City Mint receipts and ledger sheets, and vintage postcards. He also collected antique Nevada bottles and merchant tokens; and he had an impressive assortment of love tokens, Potty coins, counterstamped pieces, and opium-box dollars—all with the “CC” mintmark.

At one time, while serving as a Carson City sheriff (he had also been in law enforcement in Virginia City, and had served on Nevada’s gaming control board), Hal worked part-time at a coin shop across the street from the Nevada State Museum—he wanted to be close to all the numismatic action.

When we met in 2001, Hal showed me his 10-piece Carson City coin type set. He hadn’t put much emphasis on quality in his silver issues and he couldn’t afford rare dates. Still, all three of his “CC” gold pieces were in Mint State condition.

Over time, I exchanged some of the lower grade or cleaned silver coins in his set for better examples. The last one he had targeted to replace was his 1870-CC Seated silver dollar, which ANACS had net-graded XF-40, cleaned. He died before we could do this.

Hal would have loved to have built a complete 111-piece set of Carson City coins, but like most of us, he knew his limitations. He loved to look at the Nevada State Museum’s 109-piece set, and he loved to hear about Eliasberg’s “CC” coins. He got excited when I told him in 2004 that a fellow Nevadan, Mr. Battle Born, had completed his 111-piece set.

I thought Hal set a great example of how a person can embrace the 111-piece set concept and all it represents, without having aspirations of building one. His path of discovery led him to experience as much as possible of what the Carson City Mint’s legacy has to offer—even for someone on a limited budget.

Numismatic Writers Illuminated the Way

So much of what Hal Dunn experienced as a collector came through the learning process, just as it does with all of us. This is where reading plays an important role.

Any worthwhile numismatic publication will teach us how to collect the objects of our desire, will provide us with the history surrounding them, and will tell us about the people who have admired them. It’s all about the collectibles, the history, and the people. The 111-piece set of Carson City coins serves as an endless source of inspiration for us to explore these three topics to our heart’s content.

We will turn now to the writings of three individuals that have helped to stimulate an interest in the collecting and study of Carson City coins.

Augustus G. Heaton

It is difficult for us today, to imagine that there were times in the past when numismatists had only morsels of information about Carson City coins available. Just think what an impact a catalog like the one Stack’s Bowers Galleries produced for the Battle Born auction would have had on the numismatic world at the close of the 19th century.

Collectors back then had just one compact pamphlet to tell them most of what they wanted to know about Carson City coins.

Indeed, that small pamphlet, released by Augustus G. Heaton in 1893, served as the authoritative reference for Carson City coins for decades into the 20th century. More writers have probably quoted from Heaton’s treatise more often than from any other reference about Carson City coins (I’m even going to do that in a minute). And the amazing thing is, Heaton’s pamphlet did not just showcase Carson City coins—it covered coins from all the branch mints that had operated up to the time of its publication.

Yet because Heaton had written more about the Carson City Mint issues than anyone else had, numismatists in his generation, and in subsequent decades, grabbed on to what he had to say—like prospectors in a new mining camp plucking any speck of gold-colored ore from their diggings.

The path to discovery must start somewhere. Q. David Bowers has called Heaton a missionary who fertilized the soil for the future cultivation of interest in the collecting of mintmarked coins.

Heaton stated his mission in the preface of his treatise: “This needed information [about Branch Mint coinage] we have decided to present publicly, as a cause of new interest in United States coinage at the beginning of [the new century].”

He had three objectives in mind: No. 1 – “That others attracted to Mint Marks may better know what they require.” No. 2 – “That general attention may be given to a most fascinating branch of numismatic study.” And No. 3 – “That rare or scarce Branch Mint pieces may be sooner rescued from circulation.”

Of the 54 or so pages in Heaton’s treatise, he devoted about 4 ½ to the Carson City Mint’s coinage. This was the extent of the information collectors had for decades, to refer to if they were interested in that series. And if a collector in Heaton’s day would have relied solely on Heaton’s figures, he would have had no concept of the basic 111-piece set. Heaton’s number was 102. He denied the existence of the 1873-CC With Arrows dime, and for some reason, he did not recognize the $5 and $10 gold pieces dated 1890 to 1893.

Heaton lived another 37 years after he published his pamphlet—he died in 1930. How great it would have been for him to have written a sequel to his Mint Marks treatise toward the later years of his life, so we could have seen what he had discovered in the four-decade gap.

Harold M. Budd Sr.

We don’t find another significant reference work about Carson City coins until 1945—52 years after Heaton’s treatise first appeared. The Numismatist published in its August 1945 issue, an article submitted by Los Angeles resident Harold M. Budd Sr., titled “The Carson City Mint.” Budd, who had moved to California from Connecticut in the 19-teens, devoted about six pages to his tribute to the Carson City Mint and its coins.

His sentiments about the subject would echo those of future generations of Carson City coin enthusiasts. He wrote:

Collecting Carson City coins has been a delight, not only for the joy of collecting, but because it has enabled me to drink deep of that glorious fountain of American history, right here in the West, where history was made by giants.

It’s a common thing for those who set out on a path to discover all that the Carson City coinage series has to offer, to express such rapturous and reflective thoughts as Budd did here.

Budd’s own discoveries had led him to conclude that a complete set of Carson City coins consisted of 110 pieces. Still one short. Whereas you remember, Heaton had omitted the With Arrows dime from 1873, Budd insisted that the Carson City Mint had never made 1873 Without Arrows dimes! He had discovered a lot during his long obsession with Carson City coins, but like all of us, he had much more to learn. He could have used a rescue.

Again, just think how the Battle Born auction catalog, published by Stack’s Bowers, would have changed the game dramatically for collectors like Budd in the mid-20th century.

Budd died in 1950, the same year the 1873-CC Without Arrows dime—whose existence he denied—attracted national publicity when it sold at auction for a record price, and eventually wound up in the Eliasberg collection.

Piece-count for Complete Set of Carson City Coins Fixed at 111

Although widespread attention to the fact did not circulate in 1950 and in subsequent years, the number of pieces needed for a complete set of Carson City coins was firmly established at 111. This concept did not take hold for another 50 years, however.

With the piece-count fixed at 111 by 1950, few collectors took serious note of such a specialized, not to mention, elusive set as that offered in the Carson City series. No company designed coin albums to showcase a 111-piece set. There weren’t any checklists created titled, “111-piece Carson City Coin Set,” and there weren’t any books written about the subject.

The path to discovery would eventually lead us to such awareness: First, to the sale of the Eliasberg collection over a 15-year span, and second, to such an event as the August 2012 sale of the Battle Born collection. But the voyage had a ways to go yet.

Howard Hickson

Twenty-seven years after Budd’s article appeared in The Numismatist, and 79 years after Heaton had introduced his treatise, a third reference resource for Carson City coin enthusiasts to use as a light for their journeys appeared.

Written by Howard Hickson, a curator of exhibits at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Mint Mark: “CC” was released by the museum in 1972. This 115-page book, subtitled “The Story of the United States Mint at Carson City, Nevada,” covered the famous mint’s history in greater depth than numismatists had ever witnessed. It mentioned coins, of course, and even displayed a handful of images of them, but it was not a collector’s guide of any sort.

Yet it gave numismatists a behind-the-scenes summary of the life and times of the Carson City Mint. Something that was sure to be desired by masses of people who would be buying the millions of “CC” mintmarked silver dollars sold by the GSA, beginning, coincidently, in the year the museum released Hickson’s book.

Collectors, auction cataloguers, numismatic researchers, and authors would refer (and still do) to this book often over the past four decades.

Hickson wrote that, “the mint’s life was exciting but uncertain.”

He captured in that single sentence the essence of what has provided numismatists with so much enchantment, so much intrigue, and so many rewarding experiences through the years.

Hickson included a mintage table in the back of his book, which provides a great schematic picture of coinage operations at the Carson City Mint over a 24-year period.

I hope that Mr. Hickson has known through the years how much his book has meant to all of us who have used it to discover the joy of studying the Carson City Mint and its coins.

Three Enduring Pieces of Numismatic Literature

The three publications I have just mentioned, have all contributed to the preservation of the mint’s legacy, the generating of interest in the subject, and the leading of many people further along on their roads to discovery.

We should extend much gratitude to all three of the writers of these publications. And at the same time, we should recognize that they at times, just like all of us, needed a rescue from their ignorance during their journeys.

Heaton overlooked the 1873-CC Without Arrows dime. And he didn’t know (or at least he didn’t acknowledge) that the Carson City Mint had ceased coining operations in the year he published his treatise.

Budd said the 1873-CC Without Arrows dime never existed.

And Hickson wrote in his book that the Carson City Mint had struck 10,000 $10 gold pieces in a single day in 1870—he could have looked at his mintage table and seen that the mint didn’t make that many during that entire year! He also wrote that mint workers had run new silver coins through the “whitening” process—something they had actually done to the blank planchets before they were coined. And he said the superintendent had ordered in 1872 that coins be struck on the obverse side only, until the new reverse dies arrived—an impossible task.

I too have written things I wish I could retract or correct. It’s all about remaining humble, keeping an open mind, and appreciating the new discoveries—a rescue from ignorance is a good thing.

Always Learning

No matter how far the roads take us there will always be more to discover about what I believe is the most captivating subcategory in numismatics. “If I had only known then what I know now,” has become a mantra to me during the evolutionary trajectory I’ve been on in my study of Carson City coins since the 1980s. I know I will recite it for the rest of my life.

We keep returning to this theme. There’s always more to learn; there’s always more to discover. This is to me what makes the Carson City coinage series so provocative.

I don’t think there is another U.S. coinage series that has been the subject of so much interest, so much romance, and so much desire as the Carson City Mint series.

There have been other single coins from other U.S. mints, that are more famous and that numismatists have talked more about than any single coin from the Carson City Mint. Yet, as a whole, the “CC” series evokes more passion than any other.

A British author named Evelyn Waugh described his (yes, his) conversion to Christianity as a “delicious process of exploring.” I think we can transfer this poetic concept to the collecting of Carson City coins.

For a new Carson City coin convert, if you will, everything is fresh and exciting. It is all too much to take in at once. An enthusiast needs to keep coming back and going deeper each time around (remember Harold Budd’s metaphor about, “drinking deep from the glorious fountain”?). There’s no way anyone could know everything from the start—or even by the end of his (or her) collecting pursuits or time of study. There will always be more to discover.

Just think about how many branches numismatists have subdivided the 111-piece set in to over the years. We can take many side trips on our journey. Bill Bugert (and his friend Randy Wiley), for example, turned 10 of the pieces into 100 (and counting), in his book about “CC” half dollar varieties.

The goal is to cling to that joy which at first captured your heart, to finish the course, and to keep the faith in your conviction that the Carson City Mint and its coins are worth every minute of the time you spend in studying them. 

I have loved this “delicious process of exploring.” I’ve learned so much along the way. Yet there are hundreds, if not thousands, of things I still want to learn about the Carson City Mint and its coins. Let me give you just a few examples:

No. 1: Is there more than one 1873-CC Without Arrows dime?
No. 2: Why are there discrepancies in some mintage figures for Carson City coins from 1871 and 1872?
No. 3: Why were hundreds of cancelled dies buried on the grounds of the Carson City Mint around 1876?
No. 4: Have any journals or diaries survived from key employees at the Carson City Mint?
No. 5: How did a Baltimore coin dealer wind up with 8 or 9 1876-CC 20-cent pieces in the 1950s?

The list is endless.

I hope that some of the last words I utter on my deathbed are something like, “Would someone please tell me where Eliasberg bought his 1873-CC Without Arrows quarter?”

Sale of Battle Born Collection Leads to a New Beginning

Many numismatists followed their journey of discovery to Philadelphia on August 9, 2012, to witness the sale of the Battle Born collection. This auction will go on record as the signature moment for Carson City coin collectors.

When Stack’s Bowers auctioned off the Battle Born collection, a glory departed from the numismatic scene, especially in that niche reserved for Carson City coins. Yet, in time, the faded glory will turn to immortality, just as has happened to the great collections that have crossed under the auctioneers’ hammers in the past.

The event forever sealed the Battle Born collection’s greatness. It did the Carson City Mint’s legacy proud.

The sale of the Battle Born collection did not end our journey of discovery, however, for every road has its turning. Instead, this road will lead all who will follow it to a new beginning.