Idiot.
The last people you being into confidence are cops, politicans and the federal government.
Lady Liberty looks pretty guilty. Yikes!
But after the Langbord family took the coins to the United States Mint to be authenticated
prove it feds.
or give them back.
Couldn’t there be some statue of limitation about this? It was in their possession...and they can’t prove that the present owners had stolen them...
Uhh, I thought that was the way things were supposed to work.
"No person shall be ... deprived of ... property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Court order or not, he’s never getting his coins back.
“took the coins to the United States Mint to be authenticated...”
Ooohhh... That was dumb.
Sad.
Actually, he does.
U.S. currency is a liability on the Fed's balance sheet - meaning whoever has possession of the Federal Reserve Note has a claim against the Fed.
Of course, the Fed pays its claims in more Federal Reserve Notes, but that's beside the point.
That said and with possession usually being 9/10th’s of the law. He should have not gone to the Treasury until he established legality of ownership. He probably would have ended up with 1/3 to 1/2 of the loot because the Treasury wants the money and will not destroy the coins. Of course that would be illegal since it violates a presidential order.
Oh heck go with the Nevis scenario.
A fascinating story. I’ve read both these books and have followed this story since.
Alison Frankel: Double Eagle: the epic story of the world’s most valuable coin. New York: Norton, 2006 ISBN 0-393-05949-9
David Tripp: Illegal tender : gold, greed, and the mystery of the lost 1933 Double Eagle. New York: Free Press, 2004 ISBN 0-7432-4574-1
Being the contrarian here;
The printed these up wrong, so they kept them at the mint. They were not released. Instead, someone stole them from the mint.
Now, the descendents of a person who worked at the mint find 9 of them in a safe deposit box.
How could they possibly have gotten these things legally?
This isn’t like the government trying to seize your gold after you’ve purchased it on the open market.
Sure, we can talk about all the ways these people could have gotten rich from this, but if they were stolen from the mint, why should they get rich?
It is interesting that, in general, if property that is known to be stolen shows up, the law requires it be returned to the person who had it stolen, even if the person who now has it paid someone else for it.
Or is there really a question as to whether these coins were stolen from the mint? It doesn’t seem there is such a question, from the article.
Will the government next seize some or all safety deposit boxes under the guise of searching for more stolen property?
One of my ancestors was a good doobie and turned in his small golden nest egg when FDR called in all the gold. All those old gold pieces are worth a lot (probably not millions though).