1878-CC $10 Liberty Head Eagle PCGS XF45

Here’s a truly rare piece for the Carson City specialist. David Akers writes, “The 1878-CC is extremely rare in full EF. Above that grade, it is prohibitively rare and no specimen that I have seen or heard of even approaches full mint state.”

The finest at PCGS is a single coin graded AU58. At NGC there are one each graded MS60 and MS61. The mintage is a mere 3,244, but only 60 to 75 specimens exist today, per PCGS. Carson City coins generally had low mintages. Please see below to discover why that was.

PCGS has graded 16 as XF45 with 28 finer. Collector’s Universe gives this issue a price of $33,500.00 in XF45.

The Carson City Mint, where this rarity as struck in 1878. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In an interview with Nevada Magazine in 2018, Carson City specialist Rusy Goe discusses the Bonanza Kings of the Comstock Lode; they owned the two most productive mines at the Comstock. Goe states that they sent the vast majority of their gold and silver bullion to San Francisco. “They would never claim not to support [the Carson City Mint],” said Goe, “but they seemed to send just 10 percent or less to Carson.”

Goe says that transportation industry monopolies also made the situation more difficult at the Carson City Mint. Nevada rail services were charging exorbitant sums to move bullion from the Comstock to Carson. According to the report in Nevada Magazine, Goe said they charged as much to send bullion to Carson, which was only 14 miles away, as it would cost to send it to New York, then to San Francisco, and back to Carson.

“It was plain discrimination,” says Goe. “It was cheaper for miners to ship bullion to San Francisco and even sometimes Philadelphia.”