An unusual coin, the 1854-O Three Dollar Gold Piece
BillJones
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After Congress authorized and the president signed the bill for the Three Dollar Gold Piece, the Philadelphia Mint sent dies to all three of the branch mints. The Charlotte Mint ignored those dies and let them rust. The Dahlonega Mint produced a token number of 1,120 pieces, and the New Orleans Mint made a respectable 24,000 coins.
According to Doug Winter, there are two die varieties. Most often seen variety is represented by the piece below. It is weakly struck because the dies were lapped early in their period of service because die clashing. Winter estimates that the surviving population is 400 to 500+ pieces.
This piece is not exactly a thing of beauty, but it is better than most of the examples I have seen. It is in an AU-50 PCGS 30th anniversary green label retro holder.
Comments
There was a nice example of a Partial Collar strike
on an 1854-O $3 in the Bolt Collection that I bought
back in 1974.
I haven't seen it surface since......
....always liked that issue, and the "D" too !
Not an attractive coin but certainly an interesting one.
Smitten with DBLCs.
I like it. It is a good looking coin.
Compared to what I have seen of this date a mint mark combination it is pretty nice. I saw it on a dealer’s website, and prayed that it won’t sell before I got to see him at a show.
I like it, Bill!
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i didn't know the charlotte mint received dies and never used them. wouldn't that be something if a charlotte example existed off the books!
as always, thanks for the history.