Is $3 gold (the un-gold as I call it) a completely different animal than other gold series?

Longacre

I can't tell if I like the $3 gold or not. To me it seems like a completely different animal, and I cannot get my arms around it. I call it "un-gold", and I've heard people refer to it as the coins that people collect who don't collect gold coins. The market for these seems a little screwy, too. Here is a cut and paste from Doug Winter's recent blog:

"One really interesting market area right now is Three Dollar gold pieces. Prices have clearly dropped on these coins in the past month, especially for common dates in higher grades. But I still see a strong level of demand for rare dates in all grades and I am still an enthusiastic buyer of good coins in this series. If you are a collector of Threes, I urge you to check out the coins I am offering for sale in the upcoming edition of Coin World. In the last few weeks I have quietly sold a number of pieces from a world-class collection of Threes and I still have some incredible pieces available including a number of Finest Known and Condition Census pieces."


Does anyone know whether the $3's basically march to the beat of a different drummer, because they are unusual and supposedly your "typical" gold collector does not focus on them? The rare dates are genuinely rare, but the series seems so volitile.

RYK

I have dabbled in $3's in the past and do not consider $3 gold to be a completely different animal. This design, odd denomination, low mintage, and scarcity definitely have some appeal to collectors. There are quite a few non-gold collectors who try to acquire a piece for their collections, some that build a short set of sorts (ie. Civil War set), some that need the mintmarked dates for a southern gold set (54-D and 54-O), and some that try to acquire the series, in whole or in part.

Because of the odd denomination, rather than call it the "un-gold", perhaps it might be considered the "poor man's Stella".

Leiana

I think the three dollar gold pieces are really very interesting and can appeal to a wide range of collectors.

They are an odd denomination, and they are gold, so I would think that even non collectors might find them interesting. Also, the design itself is very artistically pleasing.

From an economic standpoint, too, the three dollar gold is an interesting study.

I rather think it romantically recalls the time before 'green backs' when money relied heavily on specie value.

-Amanda

BillJones

I would not go so far as to call this coin an “ungold” piece. The coin was the product of the gold lobby. The gold people were looking for the government to help them out, after the California gold rush caused a temporary glut of the metal on the market. The coin really didn’t have a legitimate purpose, so there was little demand for it and consequently low mintages.

I’m never going to be more than a type collector of these things. They are just too expensive to dabble in. I own an decent PCGS MS-63 example of the 1854 three dollar gold. I have more respect for this issue than most collectors because it really is a one year type coin. The letters in the word “DOLLARS” was smaller that year than on any subsequent piece. Maybe when I get some more money I look to own a nice example of the “other” type.

The market for these is made of mostly wealthy collectors, dabblers and speculators who can afford to play. I’ve known a couple of these guys, and they really were not serious collectors to my way of thinking. They just looked at a series with many low mintage issues and were attracted to them to for that reason.