1878 $3 Indian Princess Three Dollar NGC MS61

Here's a more affordable option to acquire an example of the Indian Princess design on a gold coin. With its mintage of 82,304, the largest of this popular series, this issue is perfect as a type coin to add to your collection. NGC has graded 865 as MS61, with 2,219 finer.

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

The design upon the gold $3 gold piece obverse presents a head representing an Indian princess with her hair tightly curling upon her neck, her head adorned with a ring of feathers encircled with a band inscribed LIBERTY. Upon the field of the reverse is found a wreath of tobacco, wheat, corn, and cotton. 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."