The New Orleans Mint struck 24,000 examples of the date for circulation, and circulate they did, both locally and in trade. Today only 400 to 500 examples are estimated to exist, with most of the survivors in the VF range. EF specimens are scarce and in great demand, and AU examples are about as fine as today’s collectors can hope to obtain.

Though the 1854-O $3 represents the only coinage of the denomination from our southernmost mint, further coinage of the denomination was considered. Six dated dies for an 1855-O coinage were sent to New Orleans from the Mint in Philadelphia but never utilized. Dies for $3 were also sent to New Orleans in 1856, 1859 and 1861, but no coinage for the denomination was forthcoming in any of those years.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the D. Brent Pogue Part III Auction, where it realized $76,375.