Any 3 cent silver experts? Thoughts on 1868 date...

A couple years ago, I came across the following coin at a small local show. The dealer remarked that it was fresh back from NGC earlier that week. It caught my eye because I didn't have a type coin for the 3 cent silver series and don't often see circulated coins in this excellent state of preservation. Admittedly, I knew very little about 3 cent silvers so I was a little hesitant to pay AU bid of over $1000 on a 'type coin', and initially passed.

After doing a bit of research I decided that I had been foolish to pass on the offering and fortunately had grabbed a business card from the dealer and arranged a purchase. Although I know very little on the 3cs series, I have been following this date for a little while due to my type coin purchase.

My only (minor) resource on this series is Breen, who has very little to say other than the 1868 being 'very rare' due to many being melted in 1873. However, he adds similar comments to many of the later date issues of the series. It seems obvious that the 1872 is the key date for the series, due to its low mintage but I wonder if any experts out there feel differently.

The last 3 AU55-58 coins in PCGS holders to be auctioned sold for $4560-$5405, including one that just hammered in a Heritage auction. After review, none of the coins seem exceptional for their grade. This is WAY above price guide levels. PCGS has certified 19 coins in AU (but it is top heavy at AU58, perhaps due to resubmission attempts at a MS grade) and NGC has an additional 5, including mine.

What do you guys think? Is this a sleeper date that just doesn't have enough auction records to move the price guides? Are there enough 'date' collectors of the series to justify such high demand for a difficult date? Maybe the recent high prices are from registry collectors that have a hard time finding a circulated example of this date? Thanks in advance for any available input.

 

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The star I believe is very beneficial to the coin, others here would be able to answer the question better I think it is a fantastic piece.
Why are you hiding the cert #

 

@Burton Strauss III is an expert on three cent pieces.

 

I can agree with this. Nice coin.

 

Killer coin. You're a lucky guy to have her!

 

It's a very rare coin. 4100 mintage, and few in high grades.
The price guides seem to be undervalued for this coin.
$1000 was prob a fair price at the time, and he was still prob. doubling his cost,
so it was a fair deal for both of you.
I don't know about those high auction prices in AU. Life is a gamble.

 

Nothing against anyone here, but all the fake slabs from China that keep showing up make me a little leery. Since the coin has really only been in possession of 2 people since being certified (the dealer then myself shortly thereafter) and never to public auction, I figured better safe than sorry. Had my images been more satisfactory, I may have done a GTG but I decided against it.

Interestingly, NGC has no other AU55s certified, with or without the star, and has only assigned 1 other coin a star in ANY grade (an MS65). Must both be tough in general as well as tough to find choice...

 

Every coin I look to buy now (I'm primarily search for pre1800 US Coins lately) I always peruse that China website looking for their fakes and check for comparisons, even if slabbed.

I have several silver 3 cents, though nothing on the rare side. Their a favorite of mine, thanks for sharing your images.

 

Interesting that the MS examples are worth more than the proofs.
How many proofs of 4100 were minted? And how many business strikes?

 

Lovely coin. Thanks for sharing.

 

600 proofs and 3500 business strikes. Many coins from about this time are worth more as business strikes. More proofs were held safe in collectors hands and there is less demand for proofs.
I may be wrong on the demand part. It could be that so few come on the market and price guides don't help much.
One thing is for sure, pretty coins bring high prices and that star makes this one really cool to me.

 

Freaking awesome!

The story is that after the war silver $0.03 production never really picked back up because the copper nickel $0.03 was introduced in 1865. So they produce just enough to say the coin was being produced but there wasn't any demand for it.

When the weight of silver coins were adjusted in 1873... [which you can Google is the crime of 73 although frankly the crime is somebody thinking that they could dictate through legislation the value ratio between silver and gold] - anyway the mint melted all of the obsolete and incorrect weight coins on hand. This included most of the three cent silver's from 1863 through 1872.

So to get a true handle on the Rarity you need to look less at the mintage and more at the estimated survival.

1863... mintage 21,000 .... est. survival (all grades) 500
1864... mintage 12,000 ... est. survival 500
1865... 8,000 & 400
1866... 22,000 & 600
1867... 4,000 & 300
1868... 3,500 & 200
1869... 4,500 & 300
1870... 3,000 & 500
1871... 3,400 & 800
1872... 1,000 & 100

So however you want to look at it these are very rare coins.

The price guys are unadulterated garbage but for whatever reason there's no interest in adjusting the prices...

A dealer in the Northwest bought over-the-counter 4 coins of a single year over a space of about 2 years and submitted them to PCGS. 2 XF40s, an XF45 and an XF details. And I know he sold them between 1200 and 1450... despite a price guide that says like 800.

The NGC price guide says 1250 without differentiating for the star.

The last auction sale was an XF details that sold in March for $660. The rest of the auction records are all mint State coins.


PCGS guide lists more auctions, but none current either.

The 2015 AU55 sale description said "wholesale price 525" but sold for $4,700.

 

Nah, just very scarce.

 

@Burton Strauss III Thanks for weighing in with an expert opinion. The most recent auction example of a circulated example just closed and was the following coin: https://coins.ha.com/itm/three-cent-silver/1868-3cs-au58-pcgs-secure/a/1278-3214.s?type=lot

At this point, I think that the 'outlier' auction records are likely a more accurate representation of pricing since there are no exceptions to the higher prices since 2015.

Just for fun, I took a glance at the NGC populations for all 1863-72 business strikes in the series. Some have zero coins assigned a 'star' but the average is about 1 or 2 per date. Interestingly, my 1868 is the only circulated coin with a star grade. For me, this continues to add to the coolness factor (and rarity) of the coin. At the risk of taking the thread a bit off topic, I wonder how common circulated coins with a 'star' actually are in general. Any input is very much appreciated.

 

Can proofs be easily distinguished from circulation strikes in this series?
I remember a discussion we had here once on these and if I recall there is no easy way...

Edited to add: the TPG's obviously seem to be able to distinguish proofs from
circulation strikes. but what are the markers for circulated proofs?

 

It's a lot harder than many coins, because of factors...

/0/ Early proofs are less distinct than say the 1950s and 60s...

/1/ Small # of proofs, so once they were done minting proofs there was no reason not to repurpose the dies.

/2/ Small, thin coin, so the usual markers of a sharp strike and square corners are less obvious.

Quoting NGC:

Business Strike https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-explorer/silver-three-cents-1851-1873-pscid-20/1868-3cs-ms-coinid-13688:

Proof https://www.ngccoin.com/coin-explorer/silver-three-cents-1851-1873-pscid-20/1868-3cs-pf-coinid-13718:

 

Thank you very much for the explanation, Burton Strauss III.

 

I love 3 cent pieces. Don't know why they're not more popular. Very nice.

 

Random facts from Flynn&Zack _The authoritative reference on three cent silver coins_

"A new medal room was constructed the Philadelphia mint in 1854. ... It would have made sense to strike proof coins with a press which could obtain greater pressure."

"In 1861, Director of the Mint James Pollock ordered two proofs could only be sold in sets, they no longer could be sold individually."

Proof sets were sold for the then astronomical price of $3 each!

 

1 - They are small
2 - Simple design w/o a bust or person
3 - They are scarce and not easy to find many coins for date sets beyond first 3 years

If you want to collect something scarce to rare at a reasonable price, this is it. Lots of die/date varieties too to make them interesting to collectors - even more than the 2-Cent piece and 3-Cent nickel.