The 1885-CC is the lowest-mintage Carson City Morgan, and it is also the last coin the mint struck before the doors closed. Deliveries tell the story: 100,000 in January, 100,000 in February, a final 28,000 in August, and then nothing. In November 1885 the Carson City Mint was shut down for coinage, and it would not strike another dollar until 1889.
Then the vaults rewrote the script. Of the 228,000 struck, the GSA sales of the 1970s disbursed 148,285 uncirculated examples, roughly two-thirds of the entire mintage, still in government hands ninety years after striking. The published survival estimates run as high as 168,000 coins, nearly all mint state.
That history produced the strangest rarity profile in the series: the 1885-CC is considered the rarest Morgan dollar in circulated grades, harder to find worn than the 1889-CC or even the 1893-S, while being one of the easier Carson City dates to buy uncirculated. Almost none of them ever worked a day in commerce.
The coin that circulation forgot. If you want one, buy it the way history preserved it: mint state, ideally in a GSA holder, which carries its own following. A genuinely worn 1885-CC is such an oddity that it deserves extra scrutiny rather than a bargain cheer.
| Issue | Mint | Mintage |
|---|---|---|
| 1885 Morgan Dollar | Philadelphia | 17,787,000 |
| 1885-O Morgan Dollar | New Orleans | 9,185,000 |
| 1885-S Morgan Dollar | San Francisco | 1,497,000 |
| 1885-CC Morgan Dollar | Carson City | 228,000 |
Mintage figures: United States Mint, Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, cross-checked across independent published references. Specifications: United States Mint coin specifications.