Home U.S. Coin Forum

Carson City Trade Dollars by Hub Combos

lermishlermish Posts: 2,863 ✭✭✭✭✭

I recently acquired the final hub combo needed to complete this sub-set so I thought I would break down the varieties and rarities for the few who may be interested.

The trade dollar has two different obverses and two different reverses.  (There are some who think there is a type 3 also, however @alefzero showed that was a re-engraving, not a new hub.)  The easiest way to tell the obverses apart is either the flag or the fingers.  The type one has the flag pointing left and three fingers and the type two has the flag pointing down and four fingers.


The easiest reverse pick-up point is the berry under the claw; type 1 has it, type 2 does not have one.  Other simple pick-up points are where the bottom-most arrow is pointing in relation to the 2 in 420 and whether the eagle's neck feathers are sticking out or smoothed.



1873-CC: Tough coin, only came in 1/1
1874-CC: Common date, only came in 1/1
1875-CC: Common in 1/1, scarce in 1/2.  Most reports have roughly 10-15% of the 1.6M mintage having the type 2 reverse as the dies were delivered later in the year.  Given that 2 of 16 die pairs use the type 2, this is likely a fairly accurate estimate.
1876-CC: Better date but common in 1/2.  Roughly 2/3 of the issue were 1/2 and the remaining third were the 1/1.  Almost all of the 1/1s are the well known Doubled Die Reverse which is one of the most noticeable and pronounced doubled dies in US numismatics. There is another 1/1 with a very distinct small, wide mintmark. This die was used from 1873-76 with 76 being the most common of the  four, however it is still very scarce in absolute numbers.  There was yet another 1/1 used with no DDR and a normal mintmark that is exceedingly rare.
1877-CC: Better date, only came in 2/2
1878-CC: Tough coin, only came in 2/2.  Most collectors regard this as a key date however anecdotally I have found 73-CC to be just as scarce if not more so.

Comments

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Emoji
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file