1878 CC Trade Dollar Need Help Please

Looks promising, but the lack of detail on the leaves throws me off. I'm not sure it it's toning, pictures, strike, or a counterfeit. Either way, it is artificially toned.

Thank you so much guys, looking forward to hearing more opinions! What grade would you guys issue this coin and I know the toning is in your face but is it still possible that it is not artificially toned? Thanks again

Welcome to Coin Community, Julie. Your due diligence has rewarded you with a realistic mindset when presenting your coin, which is a great relief to us.

1878-CC is a toughie. Only 97k were minted and 44k of those were melted by official order. The remainder can get pricey in higher grade.

When you first look at a Trade dollar, before anything else direct your eyes to the branch in LIBERTY's hand and the interior feathers of the eagle's wings. A large number of Trade dollar fakes are cast and will show weakness in these areas. Learn what a good strike looks like in these areas very early in your studies. Next is mint mark location, as many fakes can be unmasked that way.

All of my comments are prefaced by "to the extent we can tell from the images."

Your coin does not alarm me from either standpoint. This is not to pronounce it authentic, but that distinctive lower first C in the mint mark is known for the year and therefore encouraging. The strike details seem appropriately strong. The denticles, another telltale area, are good. If this is a fake it's a pretty good one, and we don't have enough evidence to narrow it down further, so we'll stipulate it's real to talk about toning, grading and value.

Silver tones by a known chemical process, and it progresses according to a known chromatic progression through certain hues. Further, "natural" toning (a subjective opinion, to be sure) propagates in known patterns depending on where it got that toning, for instance while sitting in a Mint bag for decades or someone's album for the same time. We can identify those by the look of the toning on the coin.

Yours, for lack of a better word, is too scatterbrained to be considered "natural." Color starts and strengthens - progresses along the chromatic path - in odd locations not consistent with the coin sitting in one place for a long time, which is one good prerequisite for "natural" toning. What it *does* look like, to someone who has seen enough of them, is a coin which is toning after having had its' surfaces chemically stripped. This is a common happenstance for silver coins, an acid dip to "freshen" the look and remove color considered ugly. It's a strong term which isn't always the end of the world when done right - I suspect your coin looked very nice indeed when it first happened.

Unfortunately, the result is a coin whose surfaces are extremely sensitive to airborne chemicals (primarily sulfur) and will tone far more easily than an original strike. One must also factor the fools who create this effect deliberately, either to hide having cleaned the coin or to artificially inflate the value. One way or the other, this is the route your coin has traveled. The color would undoubtedly be adjudicated "artificial" by a third-party grader, meaning a Details grade.

In your case, however, those details are pretty strong. If it circulated, it wasn't for long and the technical details are a strong Almost Uncirculated. This coin needs to be authenticated by a TPG to have any hope in the market but no need to do it today if you plan on holding it. An 1878-CC Trade dollar in AU Details will fetch $3,000 for a nice example; the toning on this coin would lessen that value but if authenticated it's more than a couple grand in the bank for you. And quite liquid as Details coins go, since they are scarce indeed in that technical grade. The market will be there. In fact, potential buyers would be eyeing it hard, judging whether it could handle another dip which might add hundreds to the price. I know I would be, to be honest, but I don't think the coin would tolerate it without being ruined forever in a fashion which would make it worth even less.

Fun coin, but a TPG has to judge it.

Very thankful for all the support and information you all have provided!

Would you recommend getting this coin graded by NGC or PCGS?

Also if I were to put this coin on the traders market, where would be the best place to put it so it falls into the right collectors hands?

Thanks again in advance, hope everyone has a great Friday and weekend!

Best,
Julie

I hate to be a downer here but I am pretty confident this coin is not genuine. All the 1878-CC Trade dollars have a type II reverse. One of the identifiers of a type II reverse is the the tip of the lowest arrow lines up with the middle of the 2. On this coin the tip of the lowest arrow lines up with the right side of the 2 indicating that the model coin to make the reverse of this coin had a type I reverse. That combined with lacking details in the feathers and branch held by Liberty, lack of sharpness and crispness of the reverse lettering, and the odd short looking reverse denticles, I think makes a strong case for this coin being spurious.

That is definitely a Type I reverse on a year they only used Type II's. Look at the left wing tip on reverse, it should touch the second arrow, it doesn't. Look at the leaf that should come down before the "F" in "Fine", it doesn't.

Do you know how this coin was stored by chance?