Interesting Tidbits - Item Three

[Tradedollarnut]

Another interesting story on my website (copied from Bowers Trade Dollar Encyclopedia):

 

Bruce Amspacher’s Discovery

 

Bruce Amspacher related the following concerning the rarer of two die varieties of the 1875-S/CC:

 

"In early 1974, Ed Hipps sold an 1875-S/CC Trade dollar to Jim Halperin for $375. The coin was frosty, mint state, and clean-a gem to my 1974 eyes. I wanted the coin, but Jim quoted me $625 for it. Too much. The neatest thing about the coin was that the "CC" mintmark was completely clear of the "S" and far to the right. In 1975 I asked Jim if he still had the coin. He said he had sold it to Eric Newman (or maybe he said he sold it to John Willem—it was definitely one of those two).

 

"When I wrote the trade dollar section for John Highfill’s book, The Comprehensive U.S. Silver Dollar Encyclopedia, I mentioned this variety. Walter Breen saw the article before publication and asked John to contact me. It was a new undiscovered variety, Walter insisted, and he wanted to see a photograph. John said that Walter was very excited about the coin. I called Jim about the coin, but he didn’t remember anything about it. Jim chided me about my ability to remember "everything that has ever happened." Of course, I don’t remember everything, or even close to it. But I do remember that coin, and the variety definitely exists."

 

 

 

Now, personally, I've never seen this "far to the right" variety and doubt its existance. But you never know. A new variety appeared recently at auction that was previously unknown, so I guess anything's possible!

 

A link to a normal S/CC: Legend S/CC

 

A link to a different variety(?): Silverman S/CC

 

 

[EVillageProwler]

I've never seen the Amspacher variety either, and I could not say that the Silverman specimen was an OMM. I'm not doubting DWL's attribution. All I'm saying is that it's really hard to say for sure what that little mark is next to the S.

 

EVP

 

[shirohniichan]

The Heritage coin is certainly beautiful and has an S far to the right of its ordinary position. I don't collect OMM or RPM varieties, but I'll take a closer look at 1875-S coins I run across. From the description, it appears it will be really hard to see the remaining C from the original mintmark.

 

It sounds like the Mint was really busy repunching dies originally intended for Carson City. Since these are type 1's, does that imply the Mint originally intended to send them to Carson City in late 1874?

[DWLange]

While I did ultimately conclude that this new variety (Silverman) was S/CC, it took a lot of study first. While no doubt rare, it lacks the visual appeal of the better known variety. Since this new variety does not match the one in the Cherrypicker Guide, we certified it as simply S/CC without the FS number.