1876-CC Liberty Seated Half Dollar. WB-36. Rarity-3. Misplaced Date, Medium CC. MS-62 (PCGS). OGH. The bright and brilliant obverse allows ready appreciation of cameo-like contrast between frosty design elements and semi-reflective fields. The reverse is also semi-prooflike in finish, but toned in mottled champagne-pink and olive-gray iridescence. The devices are sharply defined overall, although striking detail was not completely full and left light planchet striations (as made) in the centers on both sides. At 1,956,000 pieces produced, the 1876-CC has the highest mintage among Carson City Mint half dollars. All three operating mints (Philadelphia, Carson City, San Francisco) ratcheted up half dollar production in 1875 in anticipation of parity being achieved between Legal Tender notes and silver. When this occurred on April 20, 1876 silver coins were able to circulate in the East and Midwest for the first time since their withdrawal early in the Civil War. What the Treasury Department did not anticipate was that the achievement of parity in the market resulted in an influx of previously minted silver coins that had been hoarded throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Faced with a glut of older half dollars, there was little need for new coinage and circulation strike production fell off markedly beginning in 1878. The introduction of the Morgan silver dollar that year and the need for the mints to strike large numbers of that coin also contributed to paltry half dollar deliveries through the end of the Liberty Seated series in 1891.While plentiful in an absolute sense by Carson City Mint half dollar standards, the 1876-CC is scarce in Mint State relative to the strong collector demand for such pieces. The present example will delight mintmarked type collectors as well as Liberty Seated and/or Carson City Mint half dollar enthusiasts. From the E. Horatio Morgan Collection.
