Battle over rare gold eagle coins

[emad]

The US Mint has seized 10 Double Eagle gold coins - some of the rarest and most valuable in the world - from a woman checking their authenticity.

The Mint says the coins, which never entered circulation, are public property and is holding them at a fort.

Joan Langbord, who says she inherited the coins from her father, a jeweller, has vowed to fight to get them back.

The gold Double Eagle is so rare that in 2002 a single coin reached a price of $7.59m at auction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4190298.stm

[Richard Steele]

1. She's not very familiar with the laws concernin "stolen property".

QUOTE:
"She says she merely sent the coins to the Mint to check that they were genuine and never agreed to give up her right to them."

Sorry lady, but you NEVER had any "right to them".
They were STOLEN from the Mint, and the Mint is still
the rightful owner.

[emad]

2. Pity to melt them down. Howabout some museum taking them on

as an exhibit?

[Art_from_Ark]

5. There's no proof they're stolen property

When the coins were minted, they were still circulating coins. In those days, it was common for someone to be able to go to the Mint and trade an old gold coin for the newest one of equal face value, for example, as a present for a new baby or newlyweds. No records were made of these transactions because it was just like trading bills for coins at a bank. And the Mint never had a problem with the "legitimacy" of these coins until some dumb-ass researcher in the early 1940s decided on his own that the coins were illegal to own. It was only then that the Treasury, based on the dumb-ass's work, decided that the coins were "illegal"-- and the first one was confiscated in 1944, much to the chagrin of the owner, who in all likelihood had obtained it legally.

And as far as that goes, it is well known that the 1913 Liberty Head nickel was never a legitimate Mint product-- and yet the Treasury has never confiscated those coins.

[joseph9]

6. My research indicates the coins were likely obtained illegally.

These specific 1933 Double Eagle coins were not supposed to be released from the U.S. Mint.

FDR was Inaugurated on March 4th 1933 and shortly afterwords ended the Gold Standard.

Mr. Switt did not obtain these coins until 1937 after it was known that the 1933 coins would never be put into circulation.

There was also another instance where the Switt family obtained the Philadelphia Challenge Cup that was part of the wonderful rowing tradition this city has. The Cup disappeared for many years and somehow resurfaced at "I. Switt" on Jewelers Row. One of the names of the winners on the cup is the famous John Kelly Sr.

Mr Switt was also arrested and convicted on a separate instance of illegal possession of Gold. (per an article written by Alison Frankel on LAW.COM dated March 7th 2003.

[Eloriel]

8. Huh?

How's that?

[emad]

3. From today's Guardian:

"It's hugely exciting and there's an awful lot at stake here," said David Tripp, a coin expert and the author of the book Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle, which tells the story of the $20 coin and a remarkable 70-year operation by the US secret service to recover the handful that were not melted down to bullion.

"If the government prevails, the value of this one coin increases immensely. But if the family prevails, and there are another 10 of these coins on the market, their value goes from almost $8m <£4.4m> to about $800,000 each overnight."

Mr Fenton was arrested when he tried to sell his coin, once owned by King Farouk of Egypt, to undercover secret service agents at a New York hotel. The subsequent auction settled his legal dispute with American authorities.

Mrs Langbord's father, the Philadelphia jeweller Israel Switt, was a leading suspect in the "theft" of a number of Double Eagles from the mint in 1937, when the 445,500 coins minted three years earlier were recalled and destroyed.

Roosevelt's ruling meant that the coins were never put in circulation, adding to their value. "It was a wonderful paradox, where the coins were legally made by the US government but illegally owned the second they were pressed," Mr Tripp said.

Switt sold nine to private collectors over the next decade, before he was persuaded that the sales were illegal and ordered to forfeit the coins still in his possession.

David Lebryk, the acting director of the US mint, said Switt had been involved "in a variety of questionable activities" but had never been charged with a crime.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1557319,00.html

[Bombero1956]

4. I read that book

George McCann the cashier of the mint is the main suspect in the theft of the original coins from the Philadelphia mint who then sold them to Israel Switt.In total a bag of double eagles was missing containing 250 coins with a value of $5,000. The theft is believed to have occured in February of 1937 when the coins were being removed for destruction. The one coin that was recovered in 1996 was auctioned in 2002 at Sotheby's for $7,590,020, the most valuable American coin ever auctioned. Now 10 more are out, I wonder how the winning bidder feels about that.

[Earth_First]

7. Question:

Maybe my neurons aren't firing properly today, however, how is it that these coins are supposedly illegal to possess, however one sold at Sotheby's for $7.9M?

[Mithras61]

10. There are a number of possibilities, but...

the first that comes to mind is that the coins are supposedly stolen, and it is therefore illegal to posess them in the U.S., but since Sotheby's is in the UK...

Also, aside from ther question of stolen vs. rightfully owned, the possibility is that it is "illegal" in terms of being tender (that is, you can't buy something with it), but not for simply holding it as an investment or as you would hold gold jewelry or coinage of another nation.

[malachi]

9. Isn't there a statute of limitations on theft?

[HadItUpToHere]

11. there is a statute of limitations on the act itself-

but stolen property remains stolen property, and the legal property of the rightful owner.