Original Mintage:
Circulation strikes: 10,000
The 1876-CC is one of the legendary rarities in all of U.S. coinage. With less than 20 known surviving coins, it is arguably the second-most famous Carson City coin, second only to the
unique 1873-CC No Arrows dime. Had the denomination been accepted by the public, most of the 1876-CC twenty-cent pieces would likely not have been melted and the coin would be much more available.
The unpopularity and subsequent melting of the unreleased coins resulted in the excessive rarity of the 1876-CC.
Major Varieties:
The only known obverse die shows strong die doubling, most prominently in the word LIBERTY, on the shield, and on Liberty’s hand. Many of the stars on the obverse also show strong doubling.
Overall Scarcity:
This coin is so rare as to be considered non-collectible ("NC"). Less than 20 are known, and all but a precious few are mint state. A hoard in Maryland consisting of up to ten pieces surfaced in the
1950s, and is the source of many of the known mint state examples. The few circulated examples almost never appear in the marketplace.
Some reference guides incorrectly claim that only one circulated 1876-CC is known. This error is probably because only one of the circulated pieces has been certified by the grading services.
The other circulated coins all have one problem or another, such as cleaning or minor damage.
Comments:
It is believed that the entire mintage of 10,000 was struck from a single pair of dies. Interestingly, even though additional dies were shipped to the Carson City Mint for 1876, the die selected
for the reverse for this issue was one of the 1875-CC dies, as evidenced by number of very minor die cracks matching Reverse C used for 1875-CC (BF-4).
Altered coins are known. Some of these alterations are done by adding a “CC” mintmark to a genuine 1876-P coin. Another common alteration is to change the date of an 1875-CC. The 5 in the date
is changed to a 6 through careful reshaping of the metal. Below is an illustration of such a coin. Generally these alterations are of poor quality and only fool novice collectors.
1875-CC BF-2 altered into an “1876-CC” coin (click above for high-resolution images)
Die Marriages:
All of the surviving examples were struck from a single pair of dies. While other dies are known to exist, it is not known with certainty whether any of them were used before being cancelled and discarded.
