1892-CC $10 Gold CC Coin of the Week 9-18-11

The second World’s Fair held in the United States, the Columbian Exposition, opened on May 1, 1893. The Columbian Exposition half dollar was authorized earlier, in 1892, to coincide with the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. As such, the 1892 Columbian Exposition half dollar was the first commemorative coin in the "classic" series authorized by Congress.


PCGS MS62

The Columbian Exposition, in hindsight, was quite a boon for coin collectors. In 1892, 950,000 half dollars were sold and 1,550,445 of the 1893 variety were sold, including a small number of proofs that are rare and highly prized. Many of the half dollars are exquisitely toned. In addition, a number of medals of various varieties and the first known elongated coins were sold at the Expo.




Another Busy Year at the Mint

Back in Carson City, Nevada, the Mint was creating its own boon for coin collectors. It was the eve of the last year of production. The president had gotten his way and the Mint was to be closed for production and turned into an assay office. All that was left to mint were silver dollars and three denominations of gold. That year the mint turned out nearly 78% of the quantity minted the prior year; 1,352,000 silver dollars, 82,968 half eagles, 40,000 eagles and 27,265 double eagles.

All coins minted this year at Carson City are scarce at best. Regarding the eagle, Rusty Goe, in The Mint on Carson Street, estimates 800 to 1,200 exist in all grades, no better than 3% of the recorded mintage. He estimates only 39 – 50 exist in mint state condition, with 600 – 900 estimated in XF to AU condition. Unlike other coins minted in the waning hours of a series run at other mints, these coins were not saved by collectors for posterity. In this part of the country, these coins were workhorses and widely used in commerce.

An Interesting Variety

There is a phrase called “hiding in plain sight”. Sometimes if you want to hide something valuable really well, it can be just as effective to place it under simple cover in an accessible part of the home rather than hidden away in the usual hiding places, where the average burglar would expect it to be. Such is the case with the 1892-CC eagle.

In February 2011, in various publications, including Coin World, the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) announced that they had certified a significant Carson City variety.

"A coin submitted to NCS for conservation followed by NGC grading has turned out to be an unpublished variety. This gold eagle coined at the Carson City Mint in 1892 bears a distinctly tripled reverse die, which is quite visible within the motto IN GOD WE TRUST. With a mintage of only 40,000 pieces this issue is scarce and popular with collectors, and it would have been coined from a very limited number of dies. It’s therefore surprising that this variety hasn’t been reported previously…"

In the Summer, 2011 edition of Curry’s Chronicle, Rusty Goe reported on his own study of the tripled reverse die. He said that Douglas Winter’s book, Gold Coins of the Carson City Mint does not mention the tripled die, and Walter Breen did not mention it. John McCloskey, president of the Liberty Seated Collector’s Club told Rusty: “I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that all examples of this issue have the tripled cut letters in the motto.” He added, “I would like to know if anyone can produce an example of this date that doesn’t show the tripling effect in the motto.”

I searched my little collection of auction catalogs and found 8 appearances of ’92-CC eagles. The Amherst and Waccabuc Collection, dispersed in November, 2007, includes a quarter page plate of the eagle in it’s catalog. The photo shows evidence of the tripling, and this is not mentioned in the description. Curiously, there is no 1892-CC eagle listed in Harry Bass’ Sale, Session 2. But then, later date gold was an afterthought to Harry Bass. The Harry W. Bass Jr. Museum Sylloge, written by Dave Bowers, includes a date run of Eagle varieties through 1804, including die notes and comments by Harry Bass. That is 9 dates (no 1802 mintage) and 34 coins! If Bass had owned a `92-CC eagle and recorded his die notes, I have no doubt he would have noted the tripled die.

Provenances
R.L. Miles
George F. Scanlon
E.A. Carson
Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. [finest known at PCGS MS-64]

On November 6, 2007, on the C4OA blogsite, Rusty Goe commemorated the 25th anniversary of the sale of the Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr. gold coins. He recalled that the 1892-CC eagle was catalogued for that sale at MS65 to MS67 and realized $9,900. As stated, the coin now resides in a PCGS MS64 holder.

Excellent article as usual.

Garry, A superb, chock full of information article. I did the same checking auction catalogs to see if I could find the tripling after the story was published in Coin World. Nice tone on the commem half too! Great Job!


Loosechange

Garry,

The 1892-CC eagle provided you with several key points to tie into your article, and you took advantage of them.

You wrote:

the 1892 Columbian Exposition half dollar was the first commemorative coin authorized by Congress.

And,

It [1892] was the eve of the last year of production.

And, of course, you interjected some interesting comments about the Triple Die Reverse variety.

In my opinion, you laid out this week's COTW posting better than you have any of your past ones. Your paragraph spacing, your images positioning, and your use of color really make your article stand out.

Very good job in all aspects on this, the 101st, profiled coin in the 111-piece Coin of the Week project.

Rusty

Thanks Rusty, I always appreciate your comments on anything I write. All of us have added something new to these essays and Mike has led in adding color and photos and careful editing. I wanted to give that a try before time ran out. One thing I cannot figure out is how to justify and square off the paragraphs. I had that formatted in my Word document but it did not carry over to this format.


Thanks Mark!

Garry,

Nice article! Beautifully laid out!

So you know, the Fireboard component doesn't actually provide a "block justify" option. As you can see in Curry's Chronicle, we love justifying text so that it looks more professional, but we had to take what we got with the Discussion Board component.

In any case, not having justification doesn't detract from your COTW article at all!

Maya