The total mintage for circulation strikes in 1879 amounted to 3,000 pieces, though much of that mintage remained at the Mint. Today the 1879 is slightly more available in Mint State than it is in circulated grades, this being true of later issues as well. The present coin represents one of the finest 1879 $3s available to today’s collecting community.

1879 signaled the beginning of the end for large mintage figures in the $3 series. The Treasury Department realized the denomination had never caught on and the public had become just as comfortable with paper money as with gold. From this year until the end of the series in 1889, the Mint would produce small numbers of circulation strikes of the denomination “to prevent overvaluation from immediate rarity” as occurred for the Proof-only 1875 and 1876 $3 pieces. Undistributed quantities of $3 gold pieces accumulated at the Philadelphia Mint over the decades, and thousands of the pieces were melted. The total mintage for 1879 of 3,000 circulation strikes was delivered on December 20, just in time for holiday gift giving. For this date there are more Mint State coins known (400 to 500 or so pieces) than there are circulated specimens (only 175 to 225 pieces thought to exist). Multiple examples of the date in Mint State were offered in Thomas Elder’s 60th and 61st sales held in March and April 1912.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the D. Brent Pogue Part III Auction, where it realized $22,325.