1860 $3, CAM PR(PCGS#88023)

Summer 2025 Global Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

3250

等级

PR64CAM

价格

428,443

详细说明

This is a splendid Choice specimen of a rare early Proof three-dollar gold date. Wonderfully original deep orange-gold color blankets both sides, with hints of olive and pale silvery tinting discernible. This is a well made specimen, as one should expect, with satiny and sharply defined motifs set against reflective fields. Light lines and areas of granularity in the planchet are mostly confined to the fields - all are as made, which is also true of a number of lint marks on the obverse and a few tiny planchet pits on the reverse. The most useful of these for provenance purposes is a rather lengthy, looping lint mark in the lower obverse field that extends lightly into the bottom of Liberty's portrait. A well composed specimen that is not far from a full Gem Proof rating.<p>The Mint continued to have high expectations for Proof coin sales in 1860, when it struck 119 three-dollar gold pieces in this format. All were delivered on April 5. A few of these coins were sold as part of complete Proof sets, some as singles, but most failed to sell and, per R.W. Julian and Walter Breen, were melted in the Mint in January 1862. As so often in U.S. coinage history, therefore, the mintage is a poor indicator of availability in today's market. Survivors are very rare and number only 10 to 12 specimens (per John W. Dannreuther, 2018). One of our few offerings for the issue in recent decades, this lovely specimen is ideal for an advanced gold cabinet.<p>J.C. Morgenthau's Sale Number 444 of June 1942 seems to have slipped under the radar of modern numismatic researchers, at least as far as Proof three-dollar gold pieces are concerned, for its offerings for this type are not included in the 2018 Dannreuther reference <em>United States Proof Coins</em>. The sale's second session, June 17, included a run of three-dollar gold pieces as lots 404 through 441. Most are circulation strikes, although several Proofs make an appearance for the dates 1877 through 1889. Looking only in this part of the catalog, the sale doesn't appear to be especially memorable for this denomination. The real gems, however, are in the June 16 session, where lots 79 through 86 offered another run of three-dollar gold pieces. Although less extensive than the offering in the second session, these are the real highlights of the sale as far as the three-dollar gold series is concerned, and include a complete run of the (very) rare Proofs of 1857 through 1861. These important offerings did not escape the attention of Floyd T. Starr, who was the winning bidder on several of these lots, including the Proof 1860 offered here.