The Trial Of The 1933 Double Eagle Coin
The 1933 Double Eagle Coin
There was a very interesting federal court case this year involving the 1933 Double Eagle coin. To be more precise, it actually involved 10 very rare gold coins that technically shouldn’t even be in existence.
In case you are wondering, this coin is so rare that one of them actually sold at auction in the year 2006 for $7.6 million. This is $100,000 more than the previous one that sold at auction for 7 1/2 million dollars in the year 2002.
The trial surrounding the controversial 1933 Double Eagle coin took place in Philadelphia and it is the place of venue because a jeweler named Israel Switt from Philly is the person who claimed that he had 10 of these coins that were supposed to be destroyed in 1933 on the order of President Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
Since the US government wasn’t completely sure whether or not the story was true, they took it upon themselves to sue the Langbord family (descendants of Switt) since the coins technically shouldn’t of been in existence and the only way that they were still in existence is if they were legitimately stolen from the US mint.
Since the only way to have the 1933 Double Eagle coin is to have an illegal copy, than you are obviously not allowed to have it and the government is definitely going to want it back. And how do I know that the government will want it back? Because they sued to get them back and certainly won this particular court case.
It was very easy for the prosecutors, who go by the name of Jacqueline Romero and Nancy Rue, to prove that the 1933 Double Eagle coin collection couldn’t be anything other than stolen since the president had previously ordered them to be destroyed.
Ultimately, if you really think about what was going on during this case to prove whether or not the 10 different 1933 Double Eagle coin collection was actually stolen or not, then you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Langbord family really didn’t have a leg to stand on in this particular case.
It is well documented that all gold coins were requested to be given back to the US government at this period because they were afraid people would hoard them instead of use them to stimulate the economy. So that is basically how the 1933 Double Eagle coin collection found its way back into the possession of the United States government.
What’s The Story With The 1933 Double Eagle?
The 1933 Double Eagle
If you ever wondered what coin is the most expensive to ever be sold throughout history, then you need to wonder no further because it is actually the 1933 Double Eagle which is a gold coin. This coin sold at an auction in the year 2002 and it actually went for a whopping 7 1/2 million dollars.
Could you ever imagine paying that much money for a single coin? I know I couldn’t personally picture it, but that’s exactly what happened and there is no denying that this truly was an interesting situation to say the least.
Do you have any idea why someone would even consider spending such a large amount of money for a 1933 Double Eagle? It’s actually a really interesting story.
The US mint only produced over 400,000 Double Eagle gold coins in 1933. But President Roosevelt made some major changes that year and chose to change the laws regarding currency stating that your average and every day citizen could no longer own a gold coin.
The only gold coins that people were allowed to own at this time were the gold coins that they possessed with collectible value and nothing else. They completely removed gold coins from circulation and then melted the gold down in an effort to help stabilize the economy.
They wanted to intentionally limit the gold because they were afraid that the American people were going to hoard it instead of the use it to help stabilize the economy. This would have unfortunately caused a lot more economic uncertainty and it would’ve also caused a great deal of inflation so they made this decision and ultimately stuck with it.
What happened next was that the 1933 Double Eagle coins were then melted down and believed to have been completely taken out of existence. That was certainly not the case since one was sold in 2002, and the truth is that the Secret Service later discovered in 1952 that eight of those Double Eagles were never melted down at all.
This made these eight gold coins a very rare commodity since they were obviously supposed to be completely taken out of existence. The story goes that a cashier who worked at the US mint at the time made the switch which let these eight gold coins survive and live through the melting process.
So now you know how the 1933 Double Eagle survived and went on to still exist in 2002 to be sold at auction for 7 1/2 million dollars. We later found out that even more survived, but that’s a different story for another day.
There’s Controversy Surrounding The Double Eagle Gold Coin
The Double Eagle Gold Coin
For the most part, the majority of people out there don’t actually have any kind of clue what the Double Eagle gold coin actually is. So, for those who are wondering, this is actually a US minted coin that was worth the amount of $20 when it was in circulation.
The reason why this kind of a coin is so valuable is that it is actually 90% gold and only 10% alloy which makes this quite a hot commodity since in today’s world that much gold is worth thousands of dollars.
But if you know about the controversy surrounding this incredible gold coin then you’ll learn why there are some people who have paid as much is $7.6 million to own one of these very rare pieces of American history.
This same $20 gold coin known as the Double Eagle would actually be worth so much more than the original face value. One of these coins is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC as proof of its existence.
The second one that was given away went to William M Meredith who was at the time the Treasury Secretary. No one actually officially knows where that second coin is located since it was eventually sold as part of a property deal and no one has the exact whereabouts of where this particular coin ended up so it’s very difficult to tell you where it is located at the present time.
From the years 1907 to 1932, the Saint-Gaudens form of the gold Double Eagle was regularly issued as currency. Then in 1933 Franklin Roosevelt asked, or better yet commanded, that gold will no longer be used during the minting process for coins and that all people who owned one of these gold coins needed to immediately turn them in.
They did this specifically because of the Great Depression and it was actually illegal to own a gold coin that fits this particular description. Everyone was requested to hand them in and they were all of eventually melted down and turned into bars of gold that were housed the U.S. Treasury.
The controversy that I spoke of regarding the Double Eagle is that there are still quite a few more in existence then the two that I previously mentioned that were legally allowed to still exist. There was a court case that just took place in the year 2011 that legally gave the US government possession of 10 of these coins that were being held by the Langbord family illegally.