1874 $3 Indian Princess Three Dollar NGC MS64

The Indian Princess design is stunning and has always been a favorite of collectors. This issue is a popular type coin, one of a trio of issues generally chosen for that purpose along with the 1854 and the 1878. Please note that 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. NGC has graded 71 as MS64 with only 22 finer.

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."