1874-CC 50C Liberty Seated Half Dollar, Arrows at Date PCGS XF45

Helpful PCGS XF45 Price Information:

Collector's Universe: $8,000.

Coin Dealer Newsletter: $5,600.

Relevant auction records:  (none)

The 1874-CC half dollar is a rare date, with its mintage of only 59,000 pieces. Uncirculated examples are rare, and high-end circulated examples are typically the best that most collectors can obtain. PCGS has graded 9 as XF45 with 39 finer. Collectors Universe prices this rare issue at $8,000.00 in XF45.

Ron Guth writes in PCGS Coinfacts, “For collectors of coins from the Carson City Mint, there are two "must-have" Half Dollars: the 1870-CC and the 1874-CC With Arrows. Both have similar mintages, but for some reason, the 1870-CC is considerably rarer in all grades.”

Carson City specialist Rusty Goe estimates that 120 to 150 of the 1874-CC Arrows half dollars have survived in all grades, of which possibly 10 to 15 are Mint State and another 21 to 30 are in grades from XF to AU. Randy Wiley and Bill Bugert (1993) assign this variety a low R.6 in XF/AU. 

Goe writes, “Workers at the Carson City Mint did not concentrate on the production of small silver coinage in 1874, but instead turned their full attention to making trade dollars and to outputting more gold coins than in any other year of that factory's 1870-1874 run .… half dollars, which had previously led the way in per-piece production, tallied only a modest mintage of 59,000 -- the second lowest total between 1870 and 1878.”

The Carson City Mint, where this rarity was produced in 1874. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.