1890

Philadelphia's 1890 Type 3 Double Eagle sits in a curious middle position within its own immediate neighborhood. The 1889 Philadelphia issue, with just 44,070 business strikes, is numerically scarcer at the source, and the 1891 collapses to a mere 1,442 pieces, one of the rarest non-Carson dates in the series. That makes the 1890 the most "available" of three consecutive years that would otherwise read as a wall of Philadelphia rarities. Yet availability is relative. Numismatic researcher David Akers long ago observed that the date is in fact rarer in collector hands than its mintage implies, comparable in overall scarcity to better Type 3 Philadelphia issues of the early 1880s.

The reason is attrition. Liberty Head Twenties from this era circulated heavily in international commerce, and Philadelphia gold from 1890 saw substantial export to European reserves before the great repatriations of the late twentieth century replenished circulated populations. Survivors cluster in the AU range, where rub on Liberty's hair coil and the eagle's neck shield is often the dividing line between an honest AU58 and a low Mint State piece. Strike on Philadelphia 1890s tends to be sharper than on the contemporaneous San Francisco issue, with fully defined stars and clean denticles, though the central reverse can show minor softness at the shield's vertical lines.

Mint State examples are where the date earns its semi-key designation. PCGS CoinFacts records the certified pool as heavily weighted toward circulated grades, with choice and gem Mint State pieces appearing at intervals measured in years rather than months. A separate proof issue of 55 pieces was struck for collectors that year, a figure that helps explain why the headline mintage is sometimes cited as 75,995 rather than the 75,940 circulation total. For the broader arc of design transitions, Type periods, and the great San Francisco and Carson City sub-collections, see our Liberty Head Double Eagle series history.