Eureka! I have found it! 1875-CC “Wide CC” Trade Dollar

Very nice! A very rare die combination; no examples of this reverse die can be considered common, but this is the king of the set.

Your thoughts, @Crypto ?

Congrats on getting your white whale!

It looks very nice even if it were the common variety!

Awesome and I'm happy for you.
Love the look of it too.

What a find! Congratulations. and a beautiful looking circulated trade dollar, regardless of rarity.

Due diligence and knowledge pays off. Good find

Congrats on having the tenacity to not give up and finding the last piece to complete your Trade Dollar wide "C C" short set.

I would be stoked too.

Donato

@divecchia said:
Congrats on having the tenacity to not give up and finding the last piece to complete your Trade Dollar wide "C C" short set.

I would be stoked too.

Donato

@mbogoman. Divecchia beat me to the "I'd be stoked too" comment.

I most certainly would be.

Pete

Sweet!

Congrats, I too was wondering, not jokingky, about the absence of chopmarks, would you rather have a td with or with out the marks for your subset?

Congratulations on a unique find.... Your set sounds impressive. Look forward to seeing it. Cheers, RickO

@ChopmarkedTrades said:
Very nice! A very rare die combination; no examples of this reverse die can be considered common, but this is the king of the set.

Your thoughts, @Crypto ?

Jealous

I have been following his set for a few years and his hunting has been refreshing to see compared to some low comprehension trophy hunters. It is the studying and friends that make the hobby. The looking and finding.

The money and profit/ loss aspect can make you lose sight of the history and comparing your coins to other peoples will always make you see the flaws in yours. A grade or sticker doesn’t make a coin, the owner’s comprehension of what they (ok “he” 99.9999% of the time) have does IMHO

Congrats!! Intensely tough coin to find! Great job! One of three known!!!!!! Keoj

One has a very slight rim ding. No cleaning, just a rim impact. Barely discernable but correctly attributed.. Grade is approx. VF 30 to XF 40.

Any post that brings out our beloved TD-loving Yeti @keoj must be special indeed!

@mbogoman said:

@Crusty said:
Very cool coin... Well done! Does this coin complete the Trade dollar set completely or is it just the subset? What’s next on the list.

I never set out to build a complete Trade dollar set when this all started many years ago. First it was just a CC Trade dollar for my silver dollar type set. Then I decided to build a CC dollar set. Then about 7 years ago I saw Crypto's old Hub-Type set in the Registry and I was hooked! I have been lucky enough to have acquired almost all of the rare, tough, hard to find varieties, many in the "wild". Right now, all I have left to acquire are some "commons": 73-S, 74-S, 75-S Type 2 and 77-P (I'm looking for the DDO on this one). I strive for original looking coins in choice XF to AU58, but of course with some of the tougher varieties you take what you can get. At some point this year I'll be putting my set up on the Registry - just haven't got around to it yet...

This is the same story for me. I really thought it was only going to be a type coin. How was I wrong!

@DIMEMAN said:
Very nice! I just picked up the 74 wide CC PCGS50 at FUN for my Variety Type Set.

lets see it!

@EVillageProwler said:
Congrats on getting your white whale!

It looks very nice even if it were the common variety!

Yes, congratulations! My white whale is the fifth variety of 1909-S V.D.B. penny. Unfortunately, not so obvious as widely spaced "Cs" are on Trade dollars.

I previously owned a nice example of 1876-CC wide CC, and unwittingly sold it to another dealer. 😧
Now I spend my time / energy chasing the Briggs 1-A quarters. 😁

@ChrisH821 said:
How could a die be used between four years of production yet only a handful of the coins are known?

There are a handful of theories. My favorite (completely made-up) one is that this was the workers' emergency backup die. It mostly sat on the shelf and only got pulled down when they needed it. Or maybe a favored die, just like a line cook might have a favorite knife.

The population numbers kind of fit that story. Since 1873 was the first year of production, it probably saw a little more use, which would explain why it has the second-highest pop. In 1874 and 1875 it mostly sat on the shelf, leading to the lowest pops, especially in 1875, when the Type 2 reverse was introduced and might have handled more of the workload.

Then in 1876, the last year the Type 1 reverse was used, they may have figured they might as well get every last strike out of the die before retiring it. That would explain why 1876 has the highest pop.

Allow me to add to @lermish excellent handful of die theories.

1873 was the first production year and US Government implementation was in a sense rushed politically.

The dies were created largely by hand (not modern day production techniques) in Philadelphia and shipped cross country. It was a very big deal relatively in 1873 to manufacturing these dies and ship them.

This reverse day was a clear production mistake and some “tool and die guy” screwed up and Philadelphia Quality Control did not catch it OR “simply didn’t want to catch it” because of management reasons and production timelines partly imposed politically. Remember the enacting legislation on Trade Dollars there was nothing noble about it, it was all special interests. Does anyone think the House and Senate was nobler and honest in 1873 than today?

The die gets to Carson City and someone quickly realizes this reverse die should have been scrapped but they have production needs that they need to meet and scrapping this die if it’s ever “needed” could screw them because they would be dependent on a new reverse die being made and shipped.

So what does every good US Government Employee do? I doubt internal US Government employee driving forces were different then as today….cough cough.

You do as any red blood American US Government employee would do and put this “largely functional reverse die” in reserve and pull it out if another reverse die fails or you need to set up another production line. It’s “just in case” and no doubt to scrap this brand new reverse die would require stacks of paper work! There is no way scrapping this reverse die would be simple………lots of paper work and lots of explaining especially at “Philadelphia Head Office.” Though I suspect someone back in Philadelphia was verbally told and was thankful the die would still be used in Carson City without reams of paper work scrapping it and the explanations…….

I also suspect that someone in Carson City looked at this reverse die and said something along the line; “It’s good enough to strike Trade Dollars that are going to China to be melted.” That would have been the final internal justification as to why you didn’t do the paper work to scrap a die that did not meet likely standards.

Use of the die in later years? Now that could have also been mischief making in addition to real production needs. A lower level US Government employee making a statement that was an otherwise deep in the know secret.

Anyways my two cents.

@davewesen said:
Is there actually a wider gap between C's or are they a smaller font?

Yes.