1875 Three Dollar Gold (Proof-only)

A coin for buying stamps

The three-dollar gold piece was authorized by the Act of February 21, 1853. Its purpose has always been a little murky. In 1851 Congress had created a silver three-cent piece so Americans could buy the new three-cent postage stamp without using unpopular copper cents, and by some accounts the three-dollar coin was meant to make it easy to buy a full sheet of 100 of those stamps, or to exchange for rolls of three-cent pieces, in one transaction.

More than 100,000 were struck in the first year, but the coin never found a place in daily life. It circulated somewhat on the West Coast, where gold and silver were used in place of paper money, and lost what little role it had in the East during the economic disruption of the Civil War. By the 1870s production was token. In 1875 and 1876 the Mint struck none for circulation at all, only proofs sold to collectors.

Mint records state that 20 proofs of 1875 were struck on February 13, 1875. That figure is the root of the coin's fame. The denomination limped on until 1889, and Congress abolished both the three-dollar piece and the gold dollar on September 26, 1890; in the 1890s the Philadelphia Mint melted 49,087 of them as obsolete.

Longacre's Indian Princess

The coin was designed by James Barton Longacre, the Mint's chief engraver. In a letter of August 21, 1858, to Mint Director James Ross Snowden, Longacre explained that while his predecessors had usually adapted Greek or Roman models, he wanted something truly American for this coin. He gave Liberty a feathered headdress, drawing on a centuries-old tradition of representing America as a Native American woman, or Indian princess.

His initials, JBL, sit on the cutoff of the bust. Some sources suggest he based Liberty's features on his daughter Sarah, a story more often told about his Indian Head cent; the faces on his gold dollar, double eagle and three-cent nickel are nearly identical. To keep the coin from being confused with the $2.50 quarter eagle, Longacre struck it on a thinner, broader planchet.

The 1875 shares its design with every three-dollar piece from 1854 to 1889. What separates it is the number made and the fact that every one was struck as a proof, with mirrored fields, for sale to collectors at the Mint.

Twenty struck, thirty known

With about 30 examples known, the official mintage of 20 cannot be the whole story. Historians have argued about the gap since Walter Breen raised it in the 1950s. Breen noticed that some coins show prominent rust marks on the letters OL in DOLLARS and assumed those were restrikes made later. Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth wrote that the low mintage came with some extra striking at a later date in secrecy.

There was motive and opportunity. As collecting interest in the denomination grew in the 1880s, employees at the Philadelphia Mint enriched themselves by illicitly striking earlier dates, including 1873, 1875 and 1876, and one numismatic historian blames these irregularities on Oliver Bosbyshell, the chief coiner from 1876 to 1885. Another researcher believes there were no later restrikes at all: proofs were not counted until sold, and when unsold coins were to be melted, employees substituted common-date pieces and kept the rarities.

Others are more cautious. In his 1976 auction analysis, David Akers argued that the word restrike properly means a coin struck in a later year, which had never been proved for the 1875, and that the differences between specimens more likely reflect strikings at different times in the same year. A 2012 catalog pointed out that one Choice proof shows both the rust marks of a supposed restrike and the die traits of a supposed original, evidence that there is only one die variety. Specialist Doug Winter believes a small number of extra coins were struck later in 1875 or possibly in 1876.

From $51 to six figures

The 1875 was a known rarity almost from the start. One example, possibly bought directly from the Mint by the collector Lorin Parmelee, sold in his 1890 auction for $51, when the next most expensive three-dollar piece in the sale brought $15 and most went for less than $10. That coin passed through the Chapman brothers to Seagrave, back to the Chapmans and on to the Wilcox collection in 1901, then to Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. When the Eliasberg gold was sold in 1982, the collector Harry W. Bass Jr. bought it.

Bass owned two 1875 proofs. The Parmelee coin was offered from his collection in May 2000; the other stayed in the Bass Core Collection, on display at the American Numismatic Association museum in Colorado Springs as of 2012. The Parmelee coin, graded PR64, sold again in January 2012 for $218,500.

Doug Winter writes that the 1875 was the first U.S. coin to pass $100,000 at public auction, in 1972. The same distinction is widely given to a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, which sold for $100,000 in 1972. The competing claims could not be reconciled from the sources consulted.

Deep Cameo examples, with frosted devices against mirror fields, bring the highest prices. A PR65+ Deep Cameo from the D. Brent Pogue collection brought $329,000 in February 2016, then a record for the date. A PR65 Deep Cameo from the Harry W. Bass Jr. Core Collection sold in September 2022 for $313,352.40, and another PR65 Deep Cameo brought $456,000 in January 2023. No public sale of a PR64+ Deep Cameo, the grade named in this entry, was found.

How to know one

An 1875 three-dollar piece will always be a proof: there is no circulation-strike 1875. It weighs 5.02 grams, measures 20.50 millimeters and has a reeded edge.

On the Parmelee-Eliasberg-Bass coin, the lower loop of the first S in STATES is filled, a die line runs through the F in OF, scattered die rust shows in the fields, a short die line sits near the denticles at 1:30 on the reverse, and raised rust marks appear on OL of DOLLARS. The rust marks are the feature Breen took as a sign of a restrike.

With so few coins and so much money involved, authentication and grading by a major service is the norm, and specialists track individual examples by pedigree through the condition census.

The numbers

Official mintage

20 proofs (Mint records)

Known survivors

About 30

Weight

5.02 grams

Diameter

20.50 mm

Composition

90% gold, 10% copper

Edge

Reeded

Mint

Philadelphia, no mintmark

Designer

James Barton Longacre

Timeline

1. Feb 21, 1853

   Congress authorizes the three-dollar gold piece.

2. Apr 28, 1854

   The first 15 proof three-dollar pieces are delivered to the Treasury Secretary.

3. Aug 21, 1858

   Longacre explains his Indian Princess design in a letter to the Mint director.

4. Feb 13, 1875

   Mint records show 20 proof 1875 three-dollar pieces struck; none are made for circulation.

5. 1876

   Oliver Bosbyshell becomes chief coiner at Philadelphia, a post he holds until 1885.

6. 1889

   The last three-dollar pieces are struck.

7. 1890

   An 1875 sells for $51 in the Parmelee collection auction.

8. Sep 26, 1890

   Congress abolishes the three-dollar piece and the gold dollar.

9. 1901

   The Parmelee coin is sold in the Wilcox collection.

10. 1976

    David Akers's auction analysis questions whether true restrikes exist.

11. 1982

    Harry W. Bass Jr. buys the Parmelee coin from the Eliasberg gold sale.

12. Jan 2012

    The Parmelee-Bass coin, PCGS PR64, sells for $218,500.

13. Feb 2016

    The Pogue PR65+ Deep Cameo sells for $329,000, a record for the date at the time.

14. Jan 15, 2023

    A PR65 Deep Cameo sells for $456,000, the top auction price listed for the date.

The world in 1875

• Mar 1, 1875

  Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875, banning racial discrimination in public accommodations.

• Mar 3, 1875

  President Grant authorizes the twenty-cent piece, abolished three years later.

• May 17, 1875

  Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

• Oct 25, 1875

  Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 premieres in Boston.

• Oct 30, 1875

  The Theosophical Society is founded in New York.

• Nov 22, 1875

  Vice President Henry Wilson dies of a stroke.

• Dec 4, 1875

  Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Cuba.

Price record

A price-guide value is an editorial estimate, not a transaction and not an asking price. Guides lag the market and smooth over grade and condition. It is neither a floor nor a ceiling: a sale can land above or below it, and it should be checked against a realized sale before anything rests on it.

By reference price, 1875 Three Dollar Gold (Proof-only) is number 40 of 100 in the coins entries of the FLOAT 100. 96 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (63 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• No 1875 three-dollar piece was ever made to spend: every one was a proof struck for collectors.
• The Mint's own records account for 20 coins, but about 30 survive.
• In 1890 an 1875 brought $51 at auction, more than three times the next best three-dollar piece in the sale.
• The three-dollar coin may have been created so people could buy a full sheet of 100 three-cent stamps in one go.
• Mint employees in the 1880s were accused of quietly striking rare dates of this coin for profit.
• The 1875 shares the title of first coin to sell for $100,000 with a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, depending on whose account you read.