1870

Only 3,000 trimes came out of Philadelphia in 1870, continuing the pattern of microscopic annual production. The Mint was by now producing trimes mainly for proof sets, with a small additional quantity of circulation strikes as a legal formality. The coin had no meaningful commercial role and had not had one since the early 1860s. The Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing voting rights regardless of race or previous condition of servitude, had been ratified in February 1870, completing the trio of Reconstruction amendments.

Three thousand coins is not enough to support a meaningful collector market, yet the trime series continued to attract collectors specifically because of the extraordinary rarity of the post-1862 dates. Building a complete set meant acquiring coins that had been produced in quantities smaller than most collectors would ever handle, and the challenge drove (and continues to drive) premium pricing across the Civil War and Reconstruction-era dates.