1887 Three-Dollar Gold Piece. MS-62 (PCGS). Satiny golden-wheat surfaces with tinges of pale pink iridescence evident as the coin rotates under a light. A sharp and appealing piece at the BU grade level. The 1887, with a mintage of 6,000 pieces, is among the low mintage circulation strikes that comprise the final decade of this series. Thanks to the activities of the Chapman brothers and other contemporary numismatists and speculators, an appreciable number have survived, some later retrieved from bank reserves after acquiring light wear. Even so, the 1887 is actually one of the scarcest three-dollar gold issues, so it seems likely that the vast majority of the mintage never left the Mint in the first place. With most pieces presumably melted as undistributed, survivors are scarce to rare in all grades.
