What was the purpose of the gold $3 coin?

If the $2.50 quarter eagle already existed what exactly was the point of minting a $3 gold piece?

Surely someone could simply use a quarter eagle and half dollar to make a $3 purchase couldn’t they?

Can anyone clarify exactly what the government was thinking when they decided a $3 gold piece was a good idea?

 

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I believe this is your answer as it states they were made to purchase stamps.Which didn’t really work out as they were disliked and didn’t really enter circulation.With really low mintages and highly prized today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dollar_piece.

 

But that doesn’t make sense because stamps don’t need to be purchased in lots of 100 and even if they did there are other ways to pay $3 without a unique coin.

A $2.50 quarter eagle + $0.50 half dollar..
Or 3x $1 Silver Dollars or any combination of coins really.

That’s the part I don’t get. Before I asked this question I saw the thing about postage stamps too but it didn’t really make sense to me.

Besides 100 stamps seems like quite a lot to buy at once anyway.

 

They wanted to try something new,not everything will be perfect and ideas will happen, this was ultimately a failure

 

Fair enough!

If it was up to me I would’ve instead changed the $0.25 quarter dollar into a $0.30 piece so people could use those to buy 10 stamps at a time.

Or the government could’ve just lowered the price to 2 1/2 cents per stamp for bulk purchases of 100 and 3 cents per stamp for smaller orders.

Then the already plentiful $2.50 quarter eagle would do the job just fine for a sheet of 100 stamps and people would actually be incentivized for buying in bulk by getting the stamps at a slightly better price.

 

I think it had something to do with the amount of gold in the $3 coin comparable to European coins of small denomination.

 

I could’ve sworn that was the $4 gold stella. Or maybe I’m misremembering. If so I remember the Stella was meant to align with the Latin Monetary Union standards and be equal to 20 gold francs.

 

I think you're right. I'm not that well-versed on these coins, maybe the experts will chime in.....

 

To be fair I’m not either I just try to learn the best I can but sometimes I get things mixed up.

Oh hey I was going to ask you something else I thought of last night.

You mentioned how practically all the $20 double eagles that survived the melting were outside the US..

But didn’t the Executive Order allow each citizen to legally own $100 face value in gold?

That’s 5 Double Eagles per person that could have been saved and kept in the US legally.

Maybe a noticeable number came from people who held onto the limited gold allowed? I mean a family of 4 would be allowed to keep 20x $20 Double Eagles without breaking the law so it seems possible.

But perhaps I’m misunderstanding something?

 

It dealt with the government setting postage at 3 cents. Same reason for the 3-cent piece.

 

Yup, but that was alot of money for most people to hold and given the confusion on the EO, many people thought they had to turn it ALL in.

No, there was confusion about the EO...inability to hold 5 coins financially....patriotic duty that many felt to turn their in.....etc.

For many immigrants with limited English-speaking (like my ancestors).....how are you going to get a definitive and clear answer on what you could or could not hold ?

A lawyer ? Expensive. TV ? Not invented for another 15 years. Radio ? If you had one, who do you listen to. Newspapers ? Which one can you trust.

Most people probably were happy to hold onto their gold jewelry and give up whatever coins they had I would guess.

I'll see if Roger Burdette's Saints book has some footnotes or bibliography leads on this topic.

 

Same as for the 3-cent piece and the 20-cent piece...

 

The Coinage Act of 1853, which authorized it, was passed in early 1853 at a time when a lot of the silver coinage had been hoarded out of circulation. Thus, a Quarter Eagle plus a Half Dollar (or two Quarters) was not a viable option.

By the time they got around to actually striking the $3 in 1854 the supply of 1853 Arrows & Rays Quarters and Halves was fairly decent, but it was authorized and they struck them. Bureaucracy must be obeyed.

Another possibility was that the Mint wanted to have them to pay off gold depositors with, where they were owed odd sums between $3 and $5 or $8 and $10, but that could just as easily be done with gold dollars. Look at the tiny mintages of 1854-S $2-1/2's and $5's. I am sure that those were struck to be used for payouts.

 

Yes...at the time, silver change was difficult to be had, and people didn,t want to carry a sack of large cents around to make proper change, that's why the $3 coin was struck.

 

A more comprehensive explanation might be from an article I published in 'Penny-Wise' in 2018 (or so) titled "Coinage of 1857". I have included here an extracted paragraph (since augmented) from that article ...

The other two recently-new US coins, the 3c silver and the $3 gold, are what I would call “postal coins”. In 1851 the US Post Office reduced postal rates from a base of 5c to 3c due to business-loss to private cartage companies who were offering the same service for 3c. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, mandated the mintage of a 3c coin to buy postage stamps. But postage could only be purchased and affixed at a postal window. Businesses complained, requesting mass-purchase of unaffixed carry-away stamps. In 1854 the Post Office first sold carry-away postage stamps in 100-stamp sheets – so Congress mandated a $3 coin to buy SHEETS of stamps. The 3c base rate for US postage held for over a hundred years (with occasional forays down to 2c) – until 1958.

If you want the full article, email me at thejohn@sbcglobal.net .

 

According to Roger Burdette, the idea was that the $3 gold coin made sense when making change from other gold coins, like $5 gold. It had nothing to do with the 3 cent postage stamp according to him.

Since I like politics, perhaps it had something to do with the California gold lobby which was looking for new ways to use their product, which was then in ample supply.

Whatever the reason was, it didn't catch fire. The coin flopped, but was produced in small quantities for 36 years.

 

The real answer:

The mint decided to create a coni that would make collectors 150+ years later drool and wish that they had the funds to collect them.

And that is the real story.

 

After reading the history of the $3 coin, I can see why they were minted...1. there was few circulating silver coins at the time as the silver content was decreased and coins were being hoarded for their silver value. 2. Calif. gold was abundant, so more gold coins could be produced. 3. the railroads were in place in most of the populated areas of the country, so, mail could be delivered more cheaply, and mail was the single most valued commodity at the time, so, the Gvmt. reduced the price of a letter from 5c to 3c, and so it was worth making the $3 coin in order to buy the 100 per sheet stamps without giving out change which was probably all cents and half cents which nobody wanted.

 

I'm sure no lobbyists were involved in the decision!
(Riiiiight!)

 

Why not just use gold dollars for change?