1873-CC Seated Liberty Dollar

In 1840, the US Mint started producing silver dollars by the tens of thousands once again. Christian Gobrecht’s Seated Liberty design was chosen for the obverse, but his flying eagle reverse was rejected in favor of the eagle with olive branch and arrows, a mainstay of US coinage since 1807.

In February 1873, new legislation was enacted that, among other things, replaced the Silver Dollar with the Trade Dollar. The “Crime of 1873”, as the “Silverites” years later called it, did not go in effect until April 1, 1873.

Before the April 1 deadline, the Carson City Mint produced 2,300 of the 1873-CC Seated Liberty Silver Dollar. Numismatic scholars are confident that no more than 1000 of them made it out the door and into general circulation. The rest were melted down for re-coining into Trade Dollars.

These circumstances account for the difficulty in finding an 1873-CC Seated Liberty Silver Dollar today. It is the rarest Seated Liberty dollar that the average collector has even a ghost of a chance in acquiring. Other extreme rarities, like the 1870-S for example, command up to a million dollars or more.

An interesting footnote: The three finest known examples of the 1873-CC Seated Liberty Silver Dollar were found in the cornerstone of a Carson City building that was demolished in 1973.