Using CountIF with dates before 01.03.1900 in Excel/VBA

I have a strange problem with Execl. The value of a specific cell ist 01.01.1900, the format of the cell is date-Format. When I try to count how many instances of 01.01.1900 there are via CountIf the result is 0, the search term is created via CDate()-conversion. Here's the complete code:

Dim searchterm as Date
Dim someRange as Range
searchTerm = CDate("01.01.1900")
Application.WorksheetFunction.CountIf(someRange, searchTerm)

The whole thing works as expected when the date starts before 01.03.1900. With the date in question 01.01.1900 I get the following results:

VarType(singleCellRange) returns '7' (which is date format)

singleCellRange.Value returns 31.12.1899 (see also here)

So the question is: how do I get the right format for the problematic dates in order to make CountIf work again?