The Great Theft at Carson City
Editor’s Note: For nearly 70 years, the feature-rich pages of Coins magazine, Numismatic News’ venerable sister publication, have tracked the history, fun and the growth of this great hobby, while also attracting new collectors to pursue what was once deemed the “hobby of kings.” Dusting off these time-aged issues, from the early 1960s and beyond, each installment of “Past Times with Coins,” written by its former longtime editor, explores what nuggets of interest they contain.
By 1895, the storied Carson City Mint, which had by then produced millions of coins bearing its famed “CC” mint-mark, was in its death throes – soon to be downgraded to an assay office. Its inglorious end was nudged along by a scandal that would shake public confidence in the silver-rush era mint. It involved an audacious scheme to steal bullion from the mint, the story of which was told in detail in the August 1963 issue of Coins.
“The real saga of the closing years of the Carson City mint is one of the most fantastic stories that ever came out of the West,” wrote Jock Taylor in “The Scandalous Carson Mint.”
From the time of its first coinage, in 1870, the Carson City Mint, Carson City, Nev., saw its production “expand and contract like an accordion.” In 1885 coinage ended,
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