1859 Trime

[jerseyben]

Just picked up my first Trime. 1859 Silver 3 Cent Piece in decent shape. Anyone care to help me put an actual grade to it? I have no idea how to grade these coins...

 

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[pinebarrens1]

just send it to me and ill grade it for you .......

 

[jrc79inNC]

From the pic and the guidelines set in the Red Book, (A Guidebook of United States Coins) it looks like its a VF/ XF example. This is only a ballpark guess but its a nice example and only 364,200 were minted that year as circulation strikes. As far as the 3 cent silver coins, there were 3 varieties minted. Variety 1 was minted from 1851-1853, Variety 2 was minted from 1854-1858 and Variety 3 was minted from 1859 to 1873. Three cent pieces of a copper nickel alloy were also minted from 1865 to 1889, but had a completely different design. The odd denomination was also only made out of convenience as at the time that was the cost of a regular letter postage stamp. When the rate was changed the Three cent piece was dropped.

 

[Mike Moutray]

I would say F-15.

 

[jerseyben]

Any idea why it seems these coins are going for cheap on ebay but in most shops and price guides they are almost double the value?

 

[Mackaydon]

Ebay sales reflect real values (sales); shops and Guides reflect asking prices and retail values; simply the spread between asking prices and actual sale prices.