1874 $3 Indian Princess Three Dollar PCGS MS63 - Color!

Note: This coin has not been sent to CAC for review and possible endorsement by AUCM.

A longtime favorite of collectors, the Indian Princess design is simply stunning. This issue, the 1874, is a popular type coin, and is one of a trinity of coins typically chosen for a short type set along with the 1854 and 1878 $3 pieces. Significantly, of the three issues the mintage of the 1874 (41,800) is only around half of that of the 1878 and around one-third of the 1854. It is interesting to note that the ‘74’ in the date is noticeably sharper than that ‘18’, a characteristic of this issue that is due to an unevenly entered logotype into the working die.

PCGS has graded 181 examples of the 1874 $3 as MS63 with 138 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $6,000.00 in MS63.

Scholar Cornelius Vermeule writes that the bonnet atop the Indian Princess is similar to "sculptures before tobacconists' shops..."

Numismatic art scholar Cornelius Vermeule writes, "The 'princess'... is a banknote engraver's elegant version of folk art of the 1850s. The plumes or feathers are more like the crest of the Prince of Wales than anything that saw the Western frontiers, save perhaps on a music hall beauty. Iconographically this type of Indian maiden had occurred in American and 'primitive' paintings for many years past. The figureheads of ships and the sculptures before tobacconists' shops sported faces, tresses, and bonnets of this type."