Auction brings $7.6 million for 'Double Eagle'

CNN ^ | 30 July 2002 | Beth Nissen

[shrinkermd]

CNN) -- The 1933 gold Double Eagle coin has seen its share of jeopardy in a history that could have come straight from "The Maltese Falcon."

Since it was minted in 1933, the coin has been stolen, shipped to Egypt, hidden and almost destroyed by fire twice. The Double Eagle -- an ounce of nearly pure gold -- went up for auction Tuesday night at Sothebys, selling for $6.6 million, plus its $20 face value and a 15 percent fee to the auction house -- a total of $7.6 million.

[shrinkermd]

FYI. 69 years after the fact, the last gold coin from 1933 is accounted for. But why wasn't it melted down like the rest?

[AngrySpud]

Perhaps because it's the last of its kind: the dodo bird, the passenger pigeon, an honest politician ...

[Dallas]

[DoctorMichael]

But why wasn't it melted down like the rest?

Because George McCann had foresight and an appreciation of coins that almost no longer exists.

The Mint is trying to make coin collecting a hobby again. But who can get excited about the debased coinage that they put out today?

There is something definitely cosmic about silver and gold that is unexplainable. I have a hundred or so MS-63 (or better) Morgan Silver Dollars that I've collected over the years and a few St. Gauden's Double Eagles.........somehow a Susan B. Anthony Dollar (Yuchhhh!!!!) doesn't quite cut it in comparison.

[A Navy Vet]

Is there any special value to 1970's Kugerands?

[Mark Turbo]

I have a hundred or so MS-63 (or better) Morgan Silver Dollars that I've collected over the years and a few St. Gauden's Double Eagles.........somehow a Susan B. Anthony Dollar (Yuchhhh!!!!) doesn't quite cut it in comparison.

I recently bought an 1887 NGC certified Morgan dollar in MS-63 on eBay. It come in the mail just yesterday. I also have a 1924 Double Eagle in MS-61. Since it's not unique like the 1933 $20, I only paid $420 for it.

100 silver dollars MS-63 or better. You must have quite the collection.

[DoctorMichael]

Any special value to 1970's Kugerands?

Not particularly, unless they are in mint condition, which most aren't.
I owned a "bunch" during the 70's as an investment tool and hedge against inflation.

The South African government cranks these out as a bullion "tool" since each
contains 1 ounce of Gold (plus some alloy metal; usually copper).

The US Mint makes a one ounce gold bullion coin NOW based on the St. Gauden's
Double Eagle that likewise contains an ounce of Gold. Still, there is something
different (intangible) about the pre-1933 Double Eagles (1 ounce of Gold plus
1/10th ounce of copper to "stiffen-up" the alloy so the coins wouldn't wear
down once in circulation). Maybe its because they have all "escaped death"
ie. Roosevelt's order to turn them all in and melt them all down.

If anyone is interested (a little slow to load)............

http://www.heritagecoin.com/sales/inventorylist.asp?source=&denomination=Saint%2DGaudens+Double+Eagles&SubHeader=NA&SID=97C771666D9F48F98674BE77F837FED1

[A Navy Vet]

They have never been circulated.

[DoctorMichael]

$420 is a good buy, considering gold bullion is around $300 an ounce right now!

My collection..............I also have a bunch of 8 Reale Dollars or "Pillar Dollars" (the infamous Pieces-of-Eight) from the 1700 and early 1800's that came from an estate liquidation auction.

I used to go to a lot of auctions when I lived in Los Angeles and acquired a lot of stuff there. There was usually an auction somewhere every weekend attended mostly by coin dealers looking to acquire merchandise to sell. I once entertained thoughts of trying to get a complete collection of Morgan Silver Dollars in MS-63 or better.

{Sigh} Maybe someday. LOL

[DoctorMichael]

.......never circulated.......

Hmmmmmmmmm...........not sure. Check around, someone would probably give you better than the "spot" price if they are indeed in good shape. As I said, the ones I owned were strictly as a hedge against inflation in the late 70's and were bought and sold for a few dollars above the "spot" price of Gold at that time. They were "circulated".

The problem with K's is that the South African government puts out literally millions of these every year as "Bullion" coins (ie. as a way to own gold) not as something for "Numismatic" value (ie. limited numbers minted + some intangible artistic or historical value).

Try E-mailing some place like.................
http://www.tulving.com/

[GretchenEE]

Sounds like someone's trying to give a heads up (pun intended) to the notion that it ain't right for the gubmint to forbid ordinary people from owning gold coins.

[kellynla]

20 dollar gold coins are the only legal survivors of 455,500 double eagles struck in the spring of 1933 but never released for circulation and ultimately melted down in the fall of 1934. They are part of the National Numismatic Collection. The financial instability following World War I throughout the world encouraged many private citizens to hoard gold, ultimately also affecting the U.S. gold reserves. The problem was compounded in the 1930's by a general bank crisis which led, on March 6 to 9, to the closing of all banks. FDR succeeded, with his legislation "the Emergency Bank Relief Act", March 9, 1933 and the "Gold Reserve Act", Jan. 1934, in putting an end to these crises: banks were opened, but gold vanished. The legislation put an end to all circulation and private possession of U.S. gold; an exemption was granted for "gold coins having a recognized value to collectors of rare and unusual coins".Late in 1934, the 1933 $20 coins were melted down, with the exception of two coins. In 1923 they were added to the old Mint Collection,which had become a part of the Smithsonian Collections.
And I found this article that you might find interesting. THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO SELL THE FAMED 1933 DOUBLE EAGLE
THE MOST VALUABLE GOLD COIN IN THE
WORLD
UNITED STATES MINT SELECTS SOTHEBY’S AND STACK’S TO SELL THE
“FORBIDDEN FRUIT” OF THE COIN WORLD ON JULY 30, 2002

New York, NY – February 7, 2002 – On July 30, 2002 Sotheby’s and Stack’s will offer for sale for the first time, on the behalf of the United States Government, the most valuable gold coin in the world, the fabled and elusive 1933 Double Eagle twenty dollar gold coin. This is the first time that the United States Government has authorized private ownership of a 1933 Double Eagle. After it was struck in 1933, President Roosevelt, in one of his first acts as President, took the United States off the gold standard in an effort to help the struggling American economy out of the Great Depression. All of the 1933 Double Eagles were ordered destroyed, but ten specimens are known to have escaped into private hands. However, as they had never been officially “issued” as United States coinage, they cannot be legally owned. As a result, nine of the ten specimens were seized by, or turned in to, the United States Secret Service in the 1940s and 50s and were subsequently destroyed. The remaining 1933 Double Eagle, which will be offered, surfaced in 1996 and was seized by the United States Secret Service. The coin was returned to the United States Mint as a result of the Department of Justice’s settlement of a forfeiture action, and in that landmark legal settlement, this one coin became the only 1933 Double Eagle now or ever authorized for private ownership by the United States Government. The coin will be sold in a single lot auction at Sotheby’s York Avenue premises in New York on July 30, 2002, and carries an estimate of $4/6 million.

“This storied coin has been the center of international numismatic intrigue for more than seventy years, said Mint Director Henrietta Holsman Fore. “The Mint has certified the authenticity of this legendary 1933 Double Eagle. We will officially transfer full, legal ownership of the coin to the highest bidder at this historic sale.”

“We expect that this coin may become the most valuable coin in the world and one of the most sought-after rarities in history” said David Pickens, Associate Director, United States Mint.

David Redden, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s, and Lawrence R. Stack, Managing Director of Stack’s, said, “The story of this coin is one of the great numismatic mysteries of all time whose final chapter will be written with this auction. Currently held at United States Gold Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the coin has an intriguing history which includes seizure by the United States Government, a five-year trial with a landmark resolution and a possible connection to a royal Egyptian Collection dispersed in the 1950s. It is an enormous privilege to be asked by the United States Government to undertake the sale of the ‘Holy Grail’ of the coin collecting world.”

1933 Double Eagles

The twenty dollar gold coin, known as a Double Eagle, was a child of the California Gold Rush, and the massive shipments of ore sent back East. The first Double Eagles were issued to the public in 1850. In 1907, at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt, the denomination was radically redesigned by famed American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. These were struck until 1933 when production of the Double Eagle was discontinued along with all other United States gold coins as a result of Executive Order 6260 issued by President Franklin Roosevelt which, in an effort to aid the struggling American economy, prohibited banks from paying out gold. According to the United States Government, any Double Eagle struck in 1933 could not be legally owned, because none were officially released to the public. In early 1944, prior to the government’s discovery of the missing 1933 Double Eagles, the Royal Legation of Egypt presented a 1933 Twenty Dollar Double Eagle to the Treasury Department, seeking a license to export the coin to Egypt for King Farouk’s collection. The export license was required for virtually all gold coins under the extensive gold restrictions that had been in effect since March of 1933. Not yet recognizing the significance of an unissued 1933 coin, the Department of the Treasury inadvertently issued the export license and the King Farouk specimen was exported out of the United States. Within weeks Government officials came to recognize the significance of the 1933 Double Eagle, and discovered the existence of nine other 1933 Double Eagles that illegally left the Mint without ever being issued. Over the next ten years, these nine 1933 Double Eagles were seized or voluntarily turned in to the Department of the Treasury, and were subsequently destroyed.

Possible King Farouk Provenance

In 1954, a 1933 Double Eagle appeared at auction in Cairo, Egypt; Sotheby’s, acting on behalf of the new Republic of Egypt, was selling the astonishing collections assembled by the deposed King Farouk. King Farouk was one of the greatest coin collectors of all time, though it was not until this auction that the world learned of his remarkable achievement – the collection comprised more than 8,500 gold coins and the sale itself took nine days. Lot 185 in that auction contained a 1933 Double Eagle. Learning of the offering, the United States Treasury successfully requested that the coin be withdrawn from the sale. After this, the whereabouts of the coin remained a mystery for nearly half a century. It has been suggested, in sworn depositions, that the present coin is the King Farouk coin, and there is significant evidence that it was part of the famed collection, including the fact that no other 1933 Double Eagle is known to exist or has ever been identified.

The location of the present coin, since its minting in 1933, had been a mystery until 1996 when it was seized at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York as respected and leading British coin dealer, Stephen Fenton, attempted to sell it to Secret Service agents who were posing as coin collectors. The legal proceedings which lasted five years, ultimately resulting in a ground-breaking settlement which specifically allows this particular Double Eagle, nearly seventy years after its production, to be the only 1933 Double Eagle permitted to be privately owned.

The Auction

Part of the intrigue surrounding the coin is the fact that it has existed in limbo for nearly seventy years. In the eyes of the United States Treasury, up until now, the coin has had no monetary value and its possession could result in a possible imprisonment. Associate Director Pickens confirmed, “upon auction the coin will be officially released for private ownership and it will become official U.S. coinage. At the sale, the final purchase price will be increased by $20, which will go to the United States Treasury General Fund. In other words, the United States Government will be “issuing” one 1933 Double Eagle for the first (and only) time at this historic sale.”

The new owner of the coin will be given an official Certificate of Transfer that makes the coin legal to own. Given the complex issues surrounding the elusive 1933 Double Eagle, this Certificate of Transfer, will be itself historically significant.

Sotheby’s and Stack’s

This sale represents a partnership of Sotheby’s, whose history of coin auctions stretches back to 1755, and Stack’s, an American numismatic firm whose first coin sale was held in 1935. Most recently, in October 2001, Sotheby’s and Stack’s worked together to sell the fabled Dallas Bank Collection for $7.8 million.

.

[Jason_b]

"People in the U.S. were hoarding gold. It was undermining the nation's financial system,"

Rebuttal: Wrong. People were SAVING gold, because it was their property and there was a depression on.

"And FDR, almost as soon as he became president, within a couple of days, took us, by executive order, off the gold standard..."

Right after promising not to. From what source does the President derive the power to confiscate the people's property?

"With payment or hoarding of gold prohibited, thousands of citizens turned in their gold to the banks. "

Gee they don't like us sav I mean hoarding it, but taking it out of hoarding to use it for payment is bad too? These people are impossible to please.

"Coins are not money until it's monetized -- until the Treasury says they're money," Redden said. "They weren't legal to spend. It was simply a bright gold round disc."

If anyone thought we were not a kind of slave this should correct any misconceptions. The government strikes a gold coin and it is not money until the government says it is. I don't know where to begin.

Comment: Granted, the coin was stolen by a thief so any subsequent possessor cannot have proper title to it and the Treasury does have the right to try and get it back. It is stolen property. But to go so far as to refuse to call it what it is, is pedantic, obsessive, and crazy, and goes only to show the level of corruption of those people. It is all about power, their power over the little people.

"The 1933 Double Eagle has been under the watchful eye and heavy guard of the U.S. Mint Police ever since and will be until the coin is sold -- or rather, until the "disc" ...

Please stop with the semantic hair-splitting, it is insulting and embarrassing. They refuse to refer to it as a coin until title is officially passed, yet they refer to the post-1965 base metal copper clad tokens we common people use as...coins.

"The irony of ironies is, in order to make this coin totally legal and totally monetized, the buyer will have to give, in addition to millions of dollars it costs to buy it, $20 -- a $20 bill -- to go back to the Treasury," Redden said.

Why. Why? What are they thinking? They will not PAY money on demand when presented with a $20 federal reserve note. There is no redemption. So why on earth make the buyer ceremoniously exchange a $20 bill for this coin? There must be a latin phrase for this exercise that has the word nauseum in it but I don't know what it is. There is no irony at all. It is an act of cruelty I think meant for anyone who loves liberty. A symbolic way of rubbing their nose in it. It is the way a conqueror treats the vanquished, to humiliate and insult, and put the defeated in their place. Most Americans don't even know to feel humiliated by this, which is all the more humiliation for those who do.

[shrinkermd]

Interesting reply. Thank you. Incidentally, by my calculations the dollar has lost 93% of its purchasing power since 1933. The 20$ paid for the coin is only $1.40 in 1933 dollars.

According to The Inflation Calculator, what cost $20.00 in 1933 would cost $249.81 in 2001. Equivalently, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2001 and 1933, they would cost you $20.00 and $1.60 respectively.

In 69 years gold seems to have held on to its value. Last year I believe gold sold for about $250 and now sells for about $305.

[Jason_b]

I'm just getting warmed up.

here is an interesting inflation related page for you.

"It won't technically be legal tender, and legal to own, until the Director of the U.S. Mint signs documents after the auction."

Legal to own, sure because the Treasury has title to it. But legal tender???? What's he talking about? Some dude bids 7.6 million on it at an auction, so now he has title. But he's not going to spend it at China-Mart! It is just not the sort of thing you spend. So why all this talk about legal tender? It is a subtle propoganda. And your masters never miss a chance to exercise a little mind control. Like I said, it is all about power over the slaves. A gold coin doesn't need legal tender status at law because it is the ultimate substance to pay debts. Nobody but nobody refuses a gold coin. Even the early Gold and Silver Certificates did not have any "legal tender" wording on them, why? Because it was unnecessary. The bearer would get what the Certificate said. Under the common law everyone had the RIGHT to be paid in gold or silver coin. Not everyone exercised it as some accepted other items in barter. But the right still existed. Even the Constitution, the fundamental law of our land, Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1, "No State shall...Make anything but Gold and Silver COIN a tender in the payment of debt..." guarantees our right to be paid in gold and silver coin the way it guarantees our numerous other rights such as the right to keep and bear arms, the right to trial by jury, the right to free association, and on and on. Yet THIS one right has been so effectively erased from public consciousness, few people know they have it, and if you talk about it, people look at you funny.

Legal tender comes in to coerce a creditor (or just someone who is about to be paid for something) to accept something less than gold or silver coin, less than a silver or gold certificate (presuming you were willing to accept the certificate). Less, like what? How about depreciated paper from another colony? That happened and it pissed off Roger Sherman, who made sure Art. 1 Sec. 10, Cl. 1, was put in the Constitution. What else? Irredeemable federal reserve notes: evidence of someone else's debt. Let me know if anyone disagrees that "legal tender" is a curtailment of a fundamental American United States right under the Constitution.

So all this talk about "legal tender" status of the gold coin is for the benefit of the masses, the sheep, the brains of mush citizens, who soak it all up like sponges unquestioningly. It keeps them in the frame of mind to think that all they can ever use as money is the legal tender paper that their masters give them. The federal reserve notes they grew up with and are accustomed to.