$3 Gold Pieces (1854-1889)

One of the most curious of all United States coin denominations is the $3 gold piece, minted continuously from 1854 through 1889. The precise reason for making the $3 value has never been explained to the satisfaction of numismatists. It has been suggested that it offered a convenient way to buy three-cent stamps in sheets of 100. Inasmuch as the $2.50 piece was a well-established denomination at the time, the making of a $3 piece in the same approximate value range seems quite redundant. Three-dollar gold pieces were minted to the extent of 138,618 coins at the Philadelphia Mint in 1854, by far the highest mintage of any variety, after which production quantities fell sharply. The series was never popular, and most later mintages were very small.

Today, the major demand for $3 pieces is by type coin collectors who desire one example for a gold set. Collecting $3 pieces by date and mintmark sequence is also popular, and I have several clients who have made this a specialty. Just one, Harry Bass, the distinguished Texas collector, has a complete set - for he possesses the only known example of the 1870-S, the unique specimen from the Eliasberg Collection, which my firm auctioned for $687,500 in 1982. Other rarities in the $3 series include the famous 1875, of which just 20 are believed to have been coined, and the 1876, of which just 45 were struck. Beyond that, there are numerous issues with mintages in the hundreds or the low thousands.

Just one variety was made at the Dahlonega Mint, 1854-D, and just one at the New Orleans Mint, 1854-O. Of the 1854-D the mintage was 1,120 pieces. Jack Hancock, a specialist in Dahlonega Mint coins, told me that he thought that between 100 and 120 specimens of the 1854-D survive today, a figure which would indicate that perhaps 10% of the original mintage exists.

The 1854-O, of which 24,000 were struck, is much more readily available, although like any $3 piece, it is scarce. Norman Stack wrote that there is no such thing as a common $3 piece, and this is true. In comparison to many other United States coins, even the 1854 $3, with its mintage of 138,618, can be classified as either scarce or rare.

The first 1854 $3 piece I purchased in my professional career was obtained for the then princely sum of $35 from a rare coin dealer, whose name I do not recall, who held forth in a shop in the Hotel Redington in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, not far from my home town of Forty Fort. A lustrous, frosty Uncirculated coin, the same piece would sell for $10,000 or more today. It's too bad I didn't hold on to it! But, then, the function of a dealer is to deal, to buy and sell. Investment profits go to my clients.