The Carson City Mint and the CC Dollar
Near Incline Village, Nevada
The Comstock Lode discovery of eighteen fifty-nine produced so much silver that miners had to haul it a long way west to San Francisco just to turn it into coins. Congress authorized a Carson City mint in eighteen sixty-three to solve that problem. The building took years to construct and finally struck its first coin, a Seated Liberty Dollar, in February, eighteen seventy.
Superintendent Abraham Curry put a small CC mark on each one, creating the most coveted mintmark in American numismatics. The mint produced coins in twenty-one calendar years before closing in eighteen ninety-three, making every CC-marked piece relatively scarce. The building later became the Nevada State Museum, where visitors can see original coining presses and a vault full of the famous double-C pieces.
