As we enter 2023, where are you in your collecting journey? Have you completed all or most of the collections you’ve been working on? Are you looking for a new collecting challenge?
If so, then I have a suggestion for you that will be difficult but neither impossible nor prohibitively expensive. My suggestion is to collect silver three cent pieces. These little coins were also known as trimes or, derisively, as fish scales.
With a design by James B. Longacre, of Indian Cent fame, silver 3c pieces were minted between 1851 and 1873. During that period, the series experienced three different design types.
All design types feature a 6-pointed star on the obverse. Within the star is the Union shield, and the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA circle the rim, with the date centered below the star. On the reverse, an ornamented letter C (for cents) encloses the Roman numeral III. Thirteen evenly spaced stars circle the rim.
The first design type (Variety 1 or Type 1) was minted from 1851-1853, and this type is the only one with a date struck at a branch mint. Slightly more than 700,000 3c pieces were produced in 1851 by the New Orleans mint. Its O mintmark is located on the reverse in the opening of the C.
As often occurs in series that don’t survive, production was large at
