The rare 1860-S three dollar piece has a reported mintage of 7,000 coins. Per Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, however: '... 2,592 were found lightweight and remained unissued until December 1869, when they were melted for recoinage into other denominations.' Accordingly, the net mintage would be 4,408.      

In addition to this relatively small net mintage, another factor helps to explain the rarity of the 1860-S three dollar. Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth, in their Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coins, write: 'As with other S-mint issues, very few were put aside by collectors, resulting in a dearth of Mint State examples today. Even circulated pieces are rare, and most of those fall below the AU-50 level.'