1879 $3 MS(PCGS#8001)

Summer 2025 Global Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

3266

等级

MS63

价格

77,120

详细说明

A superior Select Uncirculated example of this desirable low mintage circulation strike three-dollar gold piece. Vivid golden-orange surfaces exhibit a few blushes of powder blue. The original mint finish remains strong and combines frosty motifs with modestly semi-prooflike fields. There are no individually mentionable marks, and a faint alloy spot at the rear of Liberty's cheek does not detract. Sharply struck and highly appealing.<p>In 1875, the federal government mandated that, beginning on January 1, 1879, gold coins would once again be exchangeable at par with paper currency. This would return gold coinage to active commerce in the eastern part of the United States for the first time since banks suspended gold specie payments in December 1861, due to the uncertain economic climate brought about by the onset of the Civil War. In anticipation of this event, the Mint increased gold coin production in 1878 to build up its stocks of such pieces. The three-dollar gold piece, confined to limited circulation strike mintages since even before the war, was about to get a second lease on life. Or so it seemed.<p>The market anticipated the date the mandate was due to take effect, and on December 17, 1878, gold achieved parity with paper on its own. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that contemporary Americans had little desire to exchange their bills for three-dollar gold pieces. The year 1879 actually marks the beginning of the end for this long-unpopular denomination, for after achieving a relatively generous mintage of 82,304 circulation strikes in 1878, production at the Philadelphia Mint plummeted once again in 1879. Only 3,000 coins were delivered for potential commercial use that year, few of which were actually paid out to banks. Several hundred Mint State survivors are known, nonetheless, these likely representing coins that were set aside as numismatic keepsakes or snatched up by dealers and other speculators during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.