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Photos courtesy of Bowers and Merena
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This coin last sold at public auction on May 1996 for $550,000 at the Eliasberg auction conducted by Bowers and Merena. This unique specimen of the 1873 Carson City dime - without arrows by date - was the last coin needed by Mr. Louis Eliasberg, Sr. for his accomplishment of putting together a complete collection of every date/denomination/mintmark and major variety of all United States coins. No one had ever done it before and no one has even come close to doing it since. The "World's Greatest Coin Collection" was completed on November 7, 1950 with Mr. Eliasberg's purchase of this coin! This in itself says a lot. This dime is the only unique issue from the Carson City Mint. The Carson City Mint was operated from 1870-1885 and again from 1889-1893 mainly for the coinage production with silver and gold from the nearby Comstock Lode. Coins from Carson City automatically carry a special "aura" to many collectors partly because of the "Romance of the Old West" that is brought to mind. What a coin this is. Pristine condition, unique, not impounded in a museum, necessary for any truly complete collection of U.S. dimes, struck at Carson City Mint, pedigree to numismatic legends in their own right; namely Nagy, Woodin and Eliasberg... need I go on? Actually, there were 12,400 no-arrows dimes minted in 1873 at the Carson City Mint. Mint records also indicate that 4,000 quarter dollars, 122,500 half dollars and 2,300 silver dollars were minted in the "no-arrows" format as well. The half dollar and silver dollar of this issue are obtainable, for a price. The quarter dollar, while not sharing the same glamour and unique status of the dime, is another major rarity in U.S. coinage with only 4 known specimens. As with many rarities, mintage figures don't correlate well to surviving specimens. Because of the Mint Act of February 12, 1873, most of the above-mentioned coin production was melted. Arrows at either side of the date on the obverse of the coin were to be added in order to signify a weight increase in the silver content. Seems strange that the same scenario, i.e. the addition of arrows at either side of the date was employed by the mint earlier in 1853-1855 to signify a decrease in the weight of many silver coins. This coin was presumably part of a hoard of patterns, literally thousands of coins, that were exchanged for the reacquisition of two $50 gold patterns by the U.S. Mint. Controversy over the private ownership of these $50 "half unions" as they are known, erupted in 1909 when John W. Haseltine and Stephen K. Nagy, Philadelphia coin dealers sold this pair of gold patterns for a whopping $10,000 each. Haseltine and Nagy traded the gold patterns back to the mint for this new, "drool", hoard of "other less-important? patterns." In the acquisition of many of the "Famous Coins of the U.S.", it has become apparent that the less said, the better...at least for a few years. The 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, the 1804 Dollars, the 1870-S $3 Gold, and even this coin to some extent, were all obtained through somewhat of a "secret circumstance." Walter Breen liked his "clandestine circumstance phrase", Q. David Bowers has his "Cloak and Dagger line" , but all you get from me is "secret circumstance." But, either way you should get the idea. Our mint has a long history of supplying "special" coins to "special" people. I can't help but wonder who has the inevitable survivors, though undocumented, of the 1964-D Peace Dollars? Was the recently confiscated 1933 $20 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle the last one in private hands? How many 1870-S dimes, half dimes and $3 pieces were actually struck? Where is the missing Liberty Head Nickel? Will Ye Olde Editor ever find a decent error coin in circulation? These are the questions that intrigue us all. Well, with the possible exception of the last one. |
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