CDR-1879 Mint Set
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Updated:
6/18/2021
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The mintage set year was the second year of silver dollar production under the Bland Allison Act which required minting 2mm ounces of Comstock Lode Nevada silver into dollars each month. This year was also the year for the first new Morgan Dollars struck by the New Orleans Mint. Since it closed in 1861 at the start of the Civil War, the New Orleans mint had not issued any US coinage from 1861 to 1879. The high dollar mintage and the scarcity of low minor coin mintages in 1879 combined to make this set a very challenging set to complete. This set has become a major project in terms of time in building the set and searching for several key coins. In fact, I find it a little odd that rare gold in tis set scores points only slightly greater than their cost. Considering this scarcity and the point scores given to modern coins which are and never will be scarce, make collecting this set a labor of love not one of point rationallity!
Civil War Reconstruction by the federal government was to have ended before 1878. However, a national outbreak of Equine flu which killed nearly 40% of all of the horses in the US, the economy was weak in 1879 and extended Reconstruction for another year. There was hoarding of 1879 silver coins because of the effect of low mintages and hard times in commerce.
I started this set with a single gold coin purchased in 2001. This coin was the 1879-S quarter eagle in AU55. At that time, I was buying type gold mostly and had no interest in Mint Sets. So, in 2004, I bought the MS 62, 1879-P quarter eagle and began to think about building a 1879 Mint Set.
There are some real issues in this set because of the time frame and politics of the time which made this set more difficult with low mintages of all issues except the very common Morgan dollars. Ifind it ironic that the MS60 double eagle is worth fewer registry points than it cost? This is a coin which is very hard to locate above AU55 and it deserves better registry point treatment than this!!!!
Nearly all of the silver issues and many of the gold issues of this date were small mintages and survivors tend to be high grade coins. This makes all of the silver minor coins hard to find and pricey. Some of the gold coins are either low mintage, like the $1 and $3 or they were higher denomination specie payment which went to Europe and are hard to find now in any higher grade than AU.
I doubt that I will ever finish this set due to the usual circumstances of age and health in retirement.
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