1870-CC Liberty Double Eagle: 3,789 From Carson City
Coin Encyclopedia · 9 min read · Published November 7, 2026
Carson City opened its mint in 1870, and the first $20 gold coin it struck was the 1870-CC Liberty double eagle. Only 3,789 were made. The mint had been built to serve the Comstock mining region of Nevada, where silver and gold were coming out of the ground faster than anyone could coin them, and the double eagle was the coin the region needed most — big, heavy, and worth twenty dollars in a place where twenty dollars was an ordinary sum. If you hold one today, you are holding the first year of Carson City gold, from a mint that lasted only twenty-three years and never struck another coin after 1893.
This page is about that first year. The 1870-CC is a Type 2 Liberty double eagle, designed by James B. Longacre, carrying the motto IN GOD WE TRUST above the eagle, and struck in numbers so small that genuine examples are scarce in every grade. Our guide has not yet researched grade-by-grade figures for this date, so the table below is empty. The history is not.
The first year of Carson City
The Carson City Mint was authorised in 1863 and opened in 1870, built of stone in the Nevada desert to coin the metal of the Comstock Lode. The Comstock was silver country, but gold came out of Nevada too, and the mint struck gold coins from its first year: double eagles, eagles, half eagles, and quarter eagles, all carrying the CC mint mark that collectors now chase. The 1870-CC double eagle was the largest of them, and the scarcest of the opening issues, with 3,789 struck.
That number needs context. Philadelphia struck double eagles by the hundreds of thousands in the same years. Carson City struck them by the thousands, because it was a branch mint serving a single mining region, and because the region's metal was mostly silver. The 3,789 double eagles of 1870 went into commerce in Nevada and California, where they circulated hard, wore down fast, and were often melted in later years. The survivors are few, and they are the coins this page is for.
The CC mint mark sits on the reverse, below the eagle, and it is the most famous mint mark in American coinage. Collectors pay a premium for it on every denomination, and the premium is largest on the first-year issues, when the mint was new and the mintages were small. A double eagle dated 1870 without a CC is a Philadelphia coin, struck in large numbers. A double eagle dated 1870 with a CC is a Carson City coin, struck in 3,789. The two letters are the coin.
The grade table, still to be researched
The table below is our researched collector estimates from the live guide, reviewed November 5, 2026. Grades our guide has not researched yet are shown as “—”, not guessed. For this date, that is every grade. No grade-by-grade figures are catalogued yet, so the table below is a statement of what we do not yet know, not a set of numbers to lean on.
| Grade | Estimated value |
|---|---|
| Good (G-4) | — |
| Fine (F-12) | — |
| Extremely Fine (XF-40) | — |
| About Uncirculated (AU-50) | — |
| Mint State 60 (MS-60) | — |
| Mint State 65 (MS-65) | — |
An empty table on a first-year Carson City coin can feel wrong, and it is worth saying why it is there. The grade table is built from researched figures, and the research has not reached this date yet. That does not make the coin common, and it does not make it cheap. It makes it unresearched, and the honest figure for it comes from the coin in hand, graded by a professional, and from the live feed on this page when newly reported results land. No one should quote you a figure for an 1870-CC from a guide alone.
Type 2 and the motto
The 1870-CC is a Type 2 double eagle, and the type is easy to recognise once you know what to look for. The obverse shows Liberty wearing a coronet, with thirteen stars around the rim and the date 1870 below. The reverse shows a heraldic eagle with a shield, an olive branch and arrows, and the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TWENTY D. around it. Above the eagle, in a scroll, are the words IN GOD WE TRUST.
That motto is the mark of Type 2. It was added to the double eagle in 1866, after the Civil War, when Congress required the motto on all coins that had carried it before. The 1870-CC was struck four years after the change, so it carries the motto. The denomination still reads TWENTY D. — the spelling changed to TWENTY DOLLARS in 1877, with Type 3. So an 1870-CC with a motto and TWENTY D. is exactly what it should be, and an 1870-CC without a motto is not genuine.
Longacre's design is the longest-running $20 design in American history, struck from 1849 to 1907. The 1870-CC is one of its great branch-mint expressions, struck at a new mint in the desert, in the first year of a mint that would become a legend. The design did not change for Carson City. The mint mark did, and that was enough.
A mint built for the Comstock
The Carson City Mint was built because the Comstock Lode was producing more silver than the nation's mints could handle, and the metal had to travel too far to be coined. The mint was a stone building in the Nevada desert, with its own assayers, its own refiners, and its own coining presses, and it struck coins for the mining region from 1870 to 1893. It closed when the Comstock played out, and it never reopened.
That short life is why Carson City coins are collected the way they are. Twenty-three years of coinage, small mintages, and a mint mark that tells you exactly where the coin came from — a place, a time, and a rush. The 1870-CC double eagle is the first $20 from that mint, struck in its opening year, and it carries all of that history in two letters and a date. Collectors of Carson City gold start here, and most of them never finish, because the first year is also the hardest to find.
Specs and the metal floor
The 1870-CC double eagle weighs 33.436 grams and measures 34 millimetres across, struck in 90% gold and 10% copper. It holds 0.9675 troy ounces of pure gold — nearly a full ounce, the largest gold content of any regular United States coin. The specification is the same for every Liberty double eagle from 1849 to 1907. If you have handled any $20 gold coin, the 1870-CC feels identical in the hand: heavy, broad, and unmistakably gold.
Metal floor: — The live melt figure on this site is calculated only for the $1 gold dollar, whose specification the Worker carries. Larger gold — $2.50, $5, $10 and $20 — has no live melt specification yet, so this page shows “—” for the metal floor rather than a computed figure. The weight above is the honest check: a genuine coin matches it, and a light coin is not genuine.
Weigh it first. A genuine double eagle is 33.436 grams, and a counterfeit in base metal will be far too light. Then measure it: 34 millimetres, with a reeded edge that is sharp and even all the way round. Then look at the design under a loupe — Longacre's Liberty has crisp hair and a clean coronet, the eagle's feathers are sharp, and the CC mint mark is in the correct position below the eagle. A cast copy looks soft, with mushy details and tiny bubbles in the fields. On a first-year Carson City coin, those three checks are the beginning, not the end: certification is where the figure is settled.
Latest reported results for this coin
Checking for newly reported results…
Your 1870-CC double eagle questions, answered
What is an 1870-CC Liberty double eagle worth?
Our guide has not yet researched grade-by-grade figures for this date, so the grade table below shows — for every grade. As the first Carson City double eagle, with only 3,789 struck, it is a scarce coin in any grade, and a professional grade is the only reliable way to value one.
What makes the 1870-CC double eagle special?
It is the first $20 gold coin struck at Carson City, in the mint's opening year. Every Carson City coin carries a premium for the CC mint mark, and the first-year double eagle is the scarcest of the mint's opening issues.
What is a Type 2 double eagle?
Type 2 is the Liberty double eagle struck from 1866 to 1876, after IN GOD WE TRUST was added to the reverse. The 1870-CC carries the motto above the eagle and reads TWENTY D. on the reverse — the spelling changed to TWENTY DOLLARS in 1877.
Why is Carson City gold so collected?
The Carson City Mint operated for only twenty-three years, striking coins for the Comstock mining region of Nevada. Its coins are scarce, they carry the famous CC mint mark, and they are tied to the silver and gold rushes of the American West.
How do I check an 1870-CC double eagle?
Weigh it at 33.436 grams and measure 34 millimetres, then examine the CC mint mark below the eagle and the design under a loupe. On a first-year Carson City coin, certification from PCGS or NGC is strongly advised.
Check your 1870-CC
An 1870-CC is Carson City's first $20, struck in its opening year in a mintage of 3,789. Weigh it, find the CC, and let a grader settle the rest. Run the date and mint mark through the free Coin Value Checker for an instant estimate, or get a Grade-or-Not verdict on whether your coin is worth certifying. The full gold guide is here: Gold Dollar Coin Values by Type and Date.
For learning only: this guide is educational, and the figures here are researched estimates, not a promise of what any single coin will bring. An 1870-CC should be authenticated and graded by professionals before any decision is made.
This guide is for education — learn the coin first, and get a professional opinion before buying or selling.