1886 $3 Indian Princess Three Dollar PCGS PR63CAM (CAC)

Fresh and of outstanding quality. Brought to us from a small town in Ohio where it's been stored for a couple of decades. We submitted to CAC and it was approved. Now there  are four (4) in Proof 63 Cameo CAC with 7 finer. The CAC suggested price is $19,500. PCGS has graded 5 as Proof 63 Cameo, with 15 finer. PCGS reports that out of the original mintage of 142, there are between 75 to 90 surviving pieces today in the 21st century.

James B. Longacre, the artist-engraver who crafted the beautiful and popular Indian Princess design for U.S. gold coinage. Photo: wikipedia.

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."