1870-CC Liberty Eagle: The First $10 From Carson City
Coin Encyclopedia · 9 min read · Published November 7, 2026
Carson City opened its mint in 1870, and the first $10 gold coin it struck was the 1870-CC Liberty eagle. Only 5,908 were made. The coin was half the gold of the double eagle struck beside it — 16.718 grams against 33.436 — and it was the working $10 of the Nevada mining region, the coin that paid wages, settled accounts, and crossed counters in Carson City and Virginia City. If you hold one today, you are holding the first year of Carson City eagles, 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 Liberty eagle designed by Christian Gobrecht, 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.
Carson City's first ten
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 eagle was the $10 of that opening year, struck in 5,908 — more than the double eagle's 3,789, but still a small number by any standard.
That number needs context. Philadelphia struck 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. The 5,908 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. An eagle dated 1870 without a CC is a Philadelphia coin, struck in large numbers. An eagle dated 1870 with a CC is a Carson City coin, struck in 5,908. 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 eagle from a guide alone.
Gobrecht's Liberty, at a new mint
The Liberty eagle was designed by Christian Gobrecht, the Mint's chief engraver, and it is one of the longest-running designs in American coinage. 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 TEN D. around it. Above the eagle, in a scroll, are the words IN GOD WE TRUST.
The motto is the mark of the later type. It was added to the 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 TEN D. — the spelling changed to TEN DOLLARS in 1877, with the final type. So an 1870-CC eagle with a motto and TEN D. is exactly what it should be, and an 1870-CC eagle without a motto is not genuine.
Gobrecht's design ran from 1838 to 1907, the longest $10 series in American history, through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. 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.
The CC mint mark and what it adds
The CC mint mark is the most famous in American coinage, and it is worth understanding why. Carson City operated for only twenty-three years, from 1870 to 1893, striking coins for a single mining region in the Nevada desert. Its mintages were small, its coins circulated hard, and its survivors are few. The mint closed when the Comstock played out, and it never reopened — which means there will never be another CC coin, and every CC coin that exists is a finite piece of a closed story.
That is the premium. A Carson City coin is not just a coin with a mint mark. It is a coin from a place and a time that ended, struck in a stone building in the desert, for miners who were paid in gold and silver. The 1870-CC eagle is the first $10 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 eagle weighs 16.718 grams and measures 27 millimetres across, struck in 90% gold and 10% copper. It holds 0.48375 troy ounces of pure gold — half the gold of the double eagle, and the same specification as every Liberty eagle from 1838 to 1907. If you have handled any $10 gold coin, the 1870-CC feels identical in the hand: solid, 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 eagle is 16.718 grams, and a counterfeit in base metal will be far too light. Then measure it: 27 millimetres, with a reeded edge that is sharp and even all the way round. Then look at the design under a loupe — Gobrecht'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 eagle questions, answered
What is an 1870-CC Liberty 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 eagle, with only 5,908 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 eagle special?
It is the first $10 gold coin struck at Carson City, in the mint's opening year. The CC mint mark carries a premium on every denomination, and the first-year eagle is one of the scarcest of the mint's opening issues.
Who designed the Liberty eagle?
Christian Gobrecht, the Mint's chief engraver, designed the Coronet eagle: Liberty wearing a coronet on the obverse and a heraldic eagle on the reverse. The design ran from 1838 to 1907, the longest $10 series in American history.
Where is the mint mark on an 1870-CC eagle?
The CC is on the reverse, below the eagle, between the tail feathers and the denomination. It is the most famous mint mark in American coinage, and its position is the same on every genuine Carson City eagle.
How is the 1870-CC eagle different from the 1870-CC double eagle?
The double eagle is the $20 coin, twice the gold and twice the size — 33.436 grams against 16.718 grams. The eagle is the $10 coin, struck in 5,908 against the double eagle's 3,789. Both are first-year Carson City coins, and both are scarce.
Check your 1870-CC eagle
An 1870-CC eagle is Carson City's first $10, struck in its opening year in a mintage of 5,908. 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 eagle 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.