1004

[L#1004] 1873 $3 Closed 3 NGC MS63PL

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:18,000.00 USD Estimated At:30,000.00 - 50,000.00 USD
[L#1004] 1873 $3 Closed 3 NGC MS63PL
Population of 1, with only 2 better for prooflike and non-prooflike. Lovely prooflike surface all around, supporting the sharp raised and generally frosted devices. Only scattered abrasions and light hairlines, choice throughout and very appealing for this low mintage rarity.

The 1873 deserves special mention: Dies with closed 3 were prepared in late fall of 1872 for all denominations. These occasioned a complaint by Chief Coiner Archibald Loudon Snowden in January 1873, alleging that the final digit (especially on smaller coins) could be readily mistaken for an 8. The Director ordered William Barber's Engraving Department to prepare a new set of date logotypes with open 3; working dies for most denominations not abolished in 1873 followed shortly. According to Breen, "Original gold proof sets obtained from the Coiner in 1873 show that the $3 -- unlike any other denomination -- had open 3.

Paradoxically, closed 3s are known, rarely in proof state, usually in F to EF grades; there is no Mint record of their coinage, and as some of these pieces have obverse dies identified as dating from 1879, they have been characterized as restrikes. However, preservation of other closed 3s does not permit positive identification of their obverse dies with coins of any other date, and the suggestion has lately been advanced that these latter may represent a delivery of a few hundred original 1873s, probably in January, mostly for circulation, omitted from Mint records in error.