1883 $20 Liberty Head NGC PF66 Ultra Cameo

The Type 3 Liberty double eagle was by far the largest mintage of the three types with 64,137,477 business strikes and 2,426 proofs minted from 1877 through 1907. Five facilities minted the coin during its thirty-one-year run: Philadelphia (no mintmark) and San Francisco (S) were the major producers, with Carson City (CC) augmenting mintage until 1893, New Orleans (O) striking coins only in 1879, and Denver (D) coming aboard for the last two years of 1906 and 1907. Mintmarks can be found on the reverse below the eagle. The 1904 Philadelphia mintage alone dwarfed all others with over 6.25 million coins produced. Collectors looking for a gem example of this design for a type set will invariably find this date. Unfortunately, counterfeits of this and other dates abound. Many Lebanese counterfeits were originally sold in the Middle East and Europe as gold bullion in a recognizable form (double eagles contain almost an ounce of pure gold). Most of these bogus coins are easily identified by an expert, but are made well enough to deceive a novice collector.