Judge: Family’s $80 Million Gold Coin Collection Belongs to Uncle Sam

theblaze.com ^ | September 8, 2012 | Erica Ritz

[GeronL]

Theft by State

[Jack Black]

Using this same thinking wouldn’t every pre-1933 gold coin be FedGov’s property (because they were supposed to be turned in?).

Of course lots of them were in foreign hands at that time, and if you lived in France FDR’s little dictatorial decrees were not your law, so that coin was still legal.

I must be missing something. I don’t get it.

[norton]

What was the line from the '12 Dem convention?

"The only thing we all belong to is the government"

Yeah, that's it.

[chopperman]

Isn’t there a ‘statue of limitations’?

[TheRhinelander]

They are reinforcing FDR’s order. Since there was no paper work trail they confiscated them. Not cool. Blame FDR.

[cynwoody]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered citizens to exchange their gold for cash in an effort to keep the banks afloat during the Great Depression

The Fascist on the Dime.

[GeronL]

“We will take things away from you for the common good” - Hillary (2008?)

[RC one]

Absolutely sickening.

[Lancey Howard]

These people took $80M worth of their coins to the government for authentication? Rather than just a few, to see how it went??
Financial Darwinism.

[American Constitutionalist]

Clint Eastwood : “ WE own this country, the politicians work for us “ .

[skr]

We know who the thief was and it wasn’t their relative.

[LukeL]

The article is incorrect. Pre 1933 gold coins could be saved if they had collector or numismatic value (this was basically to keep coin collectors happy) but they had no monetary value, nor could they be exchanged for paper or silver after the deadline.

The 1933 Double Eagle was never offically monetized and thus was not suppose to leave the mint. The King Farouk specimen was monetized in a ceremony where a new $20.00 was taken out of circulation and the coin added to keep the books balanced.

This also is not like the 1913 V Nickel or other examples where mint employees illegally made coins and smuggled them out of the mint.

[TheRhinelander]

Yes, I tend to agree with this. They should have known better. You keep those OUT of public knowledge and if you sell them you do it privately.

[hoosierham]

Taking the coins to the government was a foolish act.

[Sacajaweau]

Let's go back to the year Obama was elected....So if Obama government told me to trade in my gold, I had to do it???

Absolutely ridiculous.

So much for the wonderful FDR.

[DemforBush]

Man, that bites. On so many levels.

[hoosierham]

FDR was a thief.

[yank in the UK]

“, the coins were apparently seized without compensation and taken to Fort Knox.”

This will never happen, but if I ever have to go to court for theft, shoplifting or grand larceny, then I will just have to plead not guilty to the charges, and then explain to the judge that his terminology is wrong, and that it was not theft, It was a seizure.