1868 Three Dollar Gold (1868 $3) NGC AU58 PL CAC. The coin featured for sale is a magnificent one. Graded AU58 Proof Like by NGC, this 1868s grade is verified by the Certified Acceptance Corporation (CAC). CAC population reports confirm that this coin is the only 1868 three-dollar gold coin verified in this grade, with none higher! A truly beautiful coin with proof like, deep gold surfaces.

During the mid 19th century, the United States began spreading beyond its borders. With the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 expanding the United States land holding by 30,000 square miles, the United States had joined the worldwide move to uniform postage rates and printed stamps when the Congressional Act of March 3, 1845 authorized the first U.S. postage stamps, and set the local prepaid letter rate at five cents. This set the stage for a close connection between postal and coinage history.

Six years later, New York Senator Daniel S. Dickinson fathered legislation that simultaneously initiated coinage of a tiny silver three-cent coin as a public convenience, and the postage rate was reduced from five cents to three cents. The new silver three-cent coins were designed to facilitate the purchase of stamps without using the hated "coppers, which were seen as cumbersome and unpopular.

In order to make the purchasing of stamps easier for the public, the Mint Act of February 21, 1853 authorized a three-dollar gold coin to be struck. Members of Congress along with Mint Director Robert Maskell Patterson were convinced that the new coin would speed purchases of three-cent stamps by the sheet as well as silver three-cent coins in roll quantities. These hopes were never justified as the public failed to embrace the idea.

Chief Mint Engraver James Barton Longacre was commissioned to design the three-dollar gold coin. He chose an "Indian Princess" for his obverse not a Native American profile, but actually a profile modeled after the Greco-Roman Venus Accroupie statue, then in a Philadelphia museum. Longacre used this distinctive sharp-nosed profile on his gold dollar of 1849 and would employ it again on the Indian Head cent of 1859. On the three-dollar coin Liberty is wearing a feathered headdress of equal-sized plumes with a band bearing LIBERTY in raised letters. She's surrounded by the inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Such a headdress dates back to the earliest known drawings of American Indians by French artist Jacques le Moyne du Morgue's sketches of the Florida Timucua tribe who lived near the tragic French colony of Fort Caroline in 1562. It was accepted by engravers and medalists of the day as the design shorthand for "America."

Longacre's reverse depicted a wreath of tobacco, wheat, corn and cotton with a plant at top bearing two conical seed masses. The original wax models of this wreath still exist on brass discs in a Midwestern collection and show how meticulous Longacre was in preparing his design. Encircled by the wreath is the denomination 3 Dollars and the date.