Stack’s Bowers Galleries is set to offer a top collection of Indian Head gold $3 pieces as part of its Baltimore Whitman Coin and Collectibles Spring Expo auctions, held after the convention at its Costa Mesa, California, headquarters, April 5 to 8.

The Huberman Collection was built over 53 years and consists of 44 Proof and circulation strikes. Most of coins in the set have been off the market since the mid-1970s, and many of the coins have ownership histories that include landmark names in the hobby.

The series was first struck in 1854 and was, perhaps, issued to help facilitate the purchase of postage stamps, though that reason is uncertain. As Stack’s Bowers vice president Vicken Yegparian wrote in his Feb. 21 Coin World column, “The gold issues comprise an alluring series for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that nobody can quite put their finger on exactly why the oddly denominated series was produced in the first place!”

The final decade of the series saw limited mintages of Proof and Mint State coins. The grand rarity of the series is the 1870-S Indian Head $3 coin,which is known by a single example that is in the Bass Foundation Collection on display at the American Numismatic Association.

Another San Francisco Mint issue, the 1860-S Indian Head $3 coin, is one of the tougher dates in the series, with the “Red Book” citing a mintage of 7,000 coins and Stack’s Bowers citing Walter Breen’s 1988 Encyclopedia that reported, “2,592 of the 7,000 coins struck were found to be underweight and were melted and later turned into other denominations, leaving a net mintage of just 4,408 coins.”

Today most surviving examples are well-worn. When B. Max Mehl offered the collection’s example in his 1950 auction of the Jerome Kern Collection, the Texas dealer called it, “The most perfect and most beautiful specimen of this date and mint $3.00 gold piece I have ever seen.” It is currently graded Mint State 61 by Professional Coin Grading Service.

The cataloger observes, “Modestly reflective fields support satiny devices that range from bold to full in striking detail. The color is a pale golden-honey shade with faint traces of pink iridescence evident under a light. Wispy handling marks do little more than define the grade, and are fewer than one would expect at the MS-61 level.”

It is one of four certified by PCGS in this grade, with two finer, both surpassing the offered piece by a single grading point.

A top quality Proof $3 coin

The Huberman Collection is particularly noteworthy for its Proof coins, purchased in an era before third-party grading firms like PCGS and Numismatic Guaranty Co. added liquidity and reliability in coin grading. Perhaps the most beautiful is an 1866 Indian Head gold $3 coin graded Proof 66 Deep Cameo by PCGS, and bearing a green Certified Acceptance Corp. sticker, that is the finest-known of the date. The lot description calls it “Extraordinary!” and explains, “Deeply mirrored fields reveal a subtle ‘orange peel’ texture when observed with the aid of a loupe,” praising the soft satin texture on the devices and vivid yellow-gold surfaces that “border on numismatic perfection.”

Just 30 were minted and researcher John Dannreuther estimates that about half survive today.

The auction house comments, “The paucity of market offerings argues strongly in favor of the lower estimate but, in either case, this is a highly elusive issue with even lower quality specimens representing a significant find.”

The set’s piece has a magnificent provenance that traces back more than a century to Thomas L. Elder’s sale of the William H. Woodin Collection in 1911, then moving to the John H. Clapp estate, from which Louis E. Eliasberg Sr. purchased it in 1942. It was sold in Bowers and Ruddy’s auction of the Eliasberg Collection portion offered under the title “United States Gold Coin Collection” in October 1982. At the time the New York Times called the de-emphasis on the Eliasberg connection curious in Bowers & Ruddy press releases trumpeting the sale, writing, “Indeed, the firm is billing the material simply as ‘The United States Gold Coin Collection.’ However, there can be no question as to its source; the Eliasberg Collection has been a household word for years among numismatists and its contents could not be mistaken.”

Stack’s Bowers concludes in the current presentation, “As the finest known, the Eliasberg Deep Cameo Gem Proof offered here is a landmark rarity, the inclusion of which would put any cabinet on the numismatic map.”

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