Carson City dollars packaged for collectors

Carson City dollars have long been coveted by collectors for their rarity

and allure.

When the U.S. Government took us off of the silver standard in the 1960s

there was a window in which you could redeem your paper for the silver in

the treasury department. Much of this silver was in the form of silver

dollars.

Eventually the redemption time was up. But the government was then left with

a new and interesting problem, it still had silver dollars left in the

vaults and to top it off many of those coins were Carson City dollars.

Melting the remaining coins would have been a tragedy. Instead the

Government Services Administration (GSA for short) was given the task of

packaging these coins for sale to the general public. In total there were

about 2.9 million Carson City dollars to package and distribute.

The GSA packaged the hoard of dollars in one of two ways, a soft poly-vinyl

envelope or a hard-cased holder with a black outer box. Since most of the

Carson City coins were packaged in the hard plastic case, the coin industry

quickly started to refer to these hoard dollars as GSA¹s. With a series of

mail bid sales and offerings, all of the dollars were distributed to the

public.

Many of the Carson City dollars that were once thought rare were now within

reach of most collectors. Dates such as the 1885-CC and 1884-CC had been

considered rare before the hoard was "Ediscovered". Let us look at the

1885-CC for example. This is the lowest mintage Carson City Morgan dollar,

but of the 228,000 coins minted 148,485 were found in the GSA hoard. Before

the hoard was found an Uncirculated 1885-CC sold for just slightly less than

the ever rare 1893-S Morgan dollar. Today it can readily be found in

Uncirculated for under $1,000 where as the 1893-S in Uncirculated is $75,000

and up.

The 1884-CC now has an interesting distinguishing fact, it is the most

common Carson City Morgan dollar and thus the lowest priced dollar in the

Carson City series. Over 1.1 million 1884-CC's were struck, but for years

they were considered scarce and one of the keys to the set of Carson City

dollars.

With the GSA hoard, all of that changed. Over 960,000 1884-CC's were in the

GSA hoard and all of them Uncirculated. With nearly 85 percent of the

mintage found, this date went from being scarce to being the easiest to

obtain.

Today Carson City GSA's are highly collectible. In my next article I will

address some of the pricing nuances the GSA hoard has created and some of

the important facts to know when collecting them.

But for now let us just remain thankful that the government helped to

preserve these great Carson City dollars for generations to come.

* Allen Rowe is the owner of Northern Nevada Coin in Carson City.