In their recent May 2009 Central States auction, Heritage sold a number of very important high grade Three Dollar gold pieces. These were from the American Princess collection which, to the best of my knowledge, was one of the top collections of business strike Three Dollar gold pieces to ever be assembled.   
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One of the things that’s fun about being a coin dealer is the variety of interesting numismatic items that come across your desk. Just yesterday, within the span of an hour, I handled a cleaned Extremely Fine High Relief double eagle, an interesting group of Dahlonega quarter eagles, a rare date Seated Liberty quarter dollar and what I believe is among the finest known 1884 Three Dollar gold pieces.   
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I recently purchased a very unusual 1854-D Three Dollar gold piece. If you are even a casual aficionado of Southern gold coins, you are probably aware that a) the 1854-D is a rare and popular issue and b) it has a very established set of diagnostics. However, as this coin (and a few others) proves, not all 1854-D Three Dollar gold pieces are cut from the same cloth.   
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Is it possible to build an interesting collection of desirable United States gold without having a large per coin budget? I think the answer to this question is a resounding “yes.” There are plenty of extremely interesting pieces that are within the average collector’s price range and this includes a number of coins that are both scarce and in comparably high grades.   
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A client of mine recently asked me an interesting question about whether the addition of a specific Charlotte half eagle would—or wouldn’t—remove the stigma of Incompleteness from his set. I thought this was an interesting question and it got me to thinking about how the presence or absence of certain issues relate to rare gold coin collecting. Not everyone is cut out to work on a complete set.   
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As I have mentioned before, I have long been a fan of the low mintage Three Dollar gold pieces struck during the 1880’s. I like these coins because of their very low original mintage figures and their relative affordability. Even though the Three Dollar gold series is currently showing a slowdown after two or three years of intense activity, these particular issues are still in great demand.   
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