1872-CC $5 Gold CC Coin of the Week - 7-04-2010

Great article, Drummer. You know, $1250 for a VF 1872-CC half eagle considering its rarity, ain't a bad deal, providing you can find one.
Once again, good job.
-R-

Thanks for your kind words regarding my 1872-CC $5 article Randy. As you said..."$1250 aint a bad deal provided you can find one".....you're very correct...they don't come by too often.

I hope to see you in Carson City this August

Michael the drummer

Michael,
A well written article about a solid CC Coin.
Preparing my Coin off the week about the same year, it will be hard
to top this. See you next month.
Sierrabiker.

Hi Drummer,

Once again I enjoyed reading yet another interesting and Educational post of yours! I also wanted to say Thank you for opening my eyes to this amazing series of "CC" Gold Half Eagle coins. I am slowly on course assembling them piece by piece. Many Numismatic Scholars have often said to always buy the best of what your budget will allow, which in my case this usually translates into lower graded examples but I do try to at least find examples with a fair amount of eye appeal and also coins that match what my wallet can afford. I was extremely happy the day I found this PCGS Fine-12 example that also had a CAC sticker on it. As the third rarest coin in the series I know it could have easily been years before another affordable example was going to come along as I have seen these 72cc Half Eagles only with some serious price tags attached. I am unsure which variety I have and I am going to post photos of my coin. Perhaps someone will be able to assist me in identifying which it may be? And again, great Post Michael!!!

Nice Coin Tom! Plenty of meat on the bone for a Fine-12 grade.Up here in the northeast we don't see many CC gold at all, and if we do it is mainly Double Eagles.

Loosechnage

Hi deepsouthspike

This is certainly a very nice example of a truly scarce "CC" gold half eagle. This example just goes to show that great collections of rare coins can be built on modest budgets.

There are two varieties known for this issue - Variety 1-A and Variety 1-B: Upon examining your photos, your coin appears to be a Variety 1-A.

Variety 1-A diagnostics: Notice the date: it's positioned midway in the field between the neck and the denticles. The 1 is noticeably higher than the 2 in the date....the whole date actually slants slightly downward from left to right.

On the Reverse: The mintmark "CC" is higher in the field and closer to the eagle than on Variety 1-B (Reverse B....the other variety). It looks very similar to the "CC" mintmark on the 1870-CC and the first variety of the 1871-CC half eagles.
Your Variety 1-A is considered the rarer of the two varieties.

These variety descriptions are courtsey of Douglas Winter from his fantastic book Gold Coins of the Carson City Mint (Edited by James L. Halperin)

Variety 1-B diagnostics: Obverse: there's no "slanting" of the date.
Reverse: The mintmark "CC" is lower and closer to the VE in FIVE than on Reverse A (your coins' Reverse). Many examples of this variety show minor doubling on the reverse lettering. You can see that these diagnostic don't seem to match your coin at all.

I am truly flattered that my "CC" half eagle set has served to inspire you, as in turn others have inspired me to build my set.
I look forward to one-day building different "CC" sets as my budget allows. I also look forward to perhaps seeing your half eagles live and in person at a future C4OA event.

I hope this has helped you.

Way to go deepsouthspike!!!