Q. David Bowers
The 1850-O dollar was produced to the extent of 40,000 coins and is fairly scarce today. Mint State coins are great rarities.
In Uncirculated grade there are only two issues in the entire Liberty Seated dollar series which appear on the market with any frequency. These are the last two issues of the New Orleans Mint, 1859-O and 1860-O, both released in quantity by the Treasury circa 1962-1964, when an unprecedented numismatic and popular demand for old silver dollars induced the government to open up long-sealed vaults and distribute well over 100 million coins, mostly of the Morgan and Peace types. To my knowledge, in the 1962-1964 Treasury release no quantities of other Uncirculated Liberty Seated dollars were found, although the opinions of others differ, and there is some unsubstantiated mention in the literature of quantities of 1871 and 1872 coins coming to light. The same Treasury hoard contained tens of thousands of worn Liberty Seated dollars of mixed dates 1840-1873.
The 1859-O and 1860-O Uncirculated dollars from this source are extensively bagmarked. Most grade MS-60 through MS-63. This find of 1859-O and 1860-O dollars is fortunate for numismatists, for otherwise Uncirculated examples of the 1840-1865 without-motto design type would be exceedingly elusive.
In 1870, the Carson City Mint; which opened in 1869, produced coins for the first time. Bullion came from the nearby Comstock Lode, a fabulous treasure trove of ore discovered in 1859. At the Carson City Mint Liberty Seated dollars were produced from 1870 through 1873 inclusive and bore distinguishing CC mintmarks. All Carson City Liberty Seated dollars are elusive today, with 1871-CC (mintage 1,376 pieces) and 1873-CC (2,300 pieces) being particularly hard to find. Uncirculated examples are virtually nonexistent, 1870-CC being an exception. During the past 30 years my firm has had perhaps a dozen or so transactions involving Mint State 1870-CCs (including duplicate sales of the same coins), but only a few Uncirculated specimens of the other dates of Carson City dollars. In 1974 during our sale of the Austin Collection an 1872-CC in Uncirculated grade, possibly the finest known, sold for $6,000, representing four times the Guide Book value at the time.
Although 1873-CC has a higher mintage than 1871-CC, the 1873-CC is the scarcer of the two as many 1873-CC coins were melted at the Carson City Mint. Specimens of both issues are elusive in all grades, and in AU or better they are extreme rarities.
The first San Francisco Mint Liberty Seated dollar is the 1859-S, of which 20,000 were minted specifically for export to China. Examples are scarce today in all grades, and in Uncirculated preservation they are great rarities.
The second San Francisco dollar is the 1870-S. No mintage figure was listed in official reports, but over the years nine specimens have surfaced, with reports of a tenth. Here is one of America's greatest rarities in any grade.
The 1872-S, with a mintage of 9,000, is fairly scarce in all grades. In Uncirculated preservation it is extremely rare.
The 1873-S Liberty Seated silver dollar has a reported mintage of 700 pieces, but no example has ever come to light. It is not known whether the pieces were struck and then melted, or what happened to them. One was set aside and shipped to Philadelphia in March 1873 for subsequent evaluation in February 1874 by the Assay Commission (which met annually to review coinage for the preceding year), but what happened to it, no one knows. The same Assay Commission coins were probably the source of certain rarities of other denominations, namely the unique 1873-CC without-arrows dime (now in the Eliasberg Collection) and the four known 1873-CC without-arrows quarters (one VF and three Uncirculated). The 1873-S silver dollar represents one of the great undiscovered rarities and unsolved mysteries of American numismatics.
Striking Quality
While Proof Liberty Seated dollars were usually well struck, the same is not true of business strikes. On coins make for circulation, weakness can be present in several areas.
On the obverse of a business strike, the prime places to look for weakness are the top of the head of Miss Liberty and the stars. Weakness, when present, typically begins with stars 8 and 9 (counting from the left) and progresses gradually to the left and the right. There are some coins in which this varies, and stars to the left are sharply struck and stars to the right are weak, but in general the weakness begins or is centered around stars 8 and 9.
On the reverse, typical areas of weakness are the top of the shield and the eagle's neck immediately above it, the top of the eagle's dexter wing, and the eagle's dexter leg.
Striking can vary, even on coins made from the same die pairs. Often it was the practice to mount a pair of dies on a press, adjust them for separation (the distance between the dies determines how deep the metal will flow into the die recesses; the wider the distance, the poorer the strike, but the longer the dies will last), and strike coins. The dies would then be removed, stored, and later put back on a press, adjusted again (perhaps differently from the first time), and used to strike additional coins.