Posted on 09/08/2012 11:35:22 PM PDT by grundle
A judge has ruled that ten rare gold coins worth roughly $80 million belong to the U.S. government, not the family that possessed them, according to ABC News.
In 2003 Joan Langbord and two other family members opened a safety deposit box that belonged to Langbord’s father, Philadelphia coin dealer Israel Switt, and found the valuable collection. When they asked the Philadelphia Mint to authenticate the find, the coins were apparently seized without compensation and taken to Fort Knox.
The 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle is “one of the most sought-after rarities in history,” according to Courthouse News. Originally valued at $20 each, one owned by King Farouk of Egypt reportedly sold for as much as $7.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2002.
The Langbords unsuccessfully sued the government in 2011, alleging that the coins are rightfully theirs, and now they have lost the appeal.
Jacqueline Romero, assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, explained that the coins legally belonged to the government after Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered citizens to exchange their gold for cash in an effort to keep the banks afloat during the Great Depression.
“Those coins were all in a vault and were supposed to be melted,” she asserted.
The family maintains that in another seizure of the valuable coin, the government split the proceeds with the original owner after it sold for $7.59 million in 2002, and that the coins escaped the Mint legitimately through a “window of opportunity” between March 15 and April 5, 1933, the Huffington Post relates.
However, U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis Jr. wrote in his decision: “The Mint meticulously tracked the ‘33 Double Eagles, and the records show that no such transaction occurred…What’s more, this absence of a paper trail speaks to criminal intent. If whoever took or exchanged the coins thought he was doing no wrong, we would expect to see some sort of documentation reflecting the transaction, especially considering how carefully and methodically the Mint accounted for the ‘33 Double Eagles.”
“Nobody witnessed the disappearance of the 10 coins, but the jury could – and did – properly infer criminal intent,” Davis added.
Barry Berke, the family’s attorney, concluded for ABCNews.com: “This is a case that raises many novel legal questions, including the limits on the government’s power to confiscate property.”
Ask any coin collector or dealer and they will tell you the same thing. Your opinions of the government have no bearing on this.
As for monetizing every year’s issue, yes this must be done and is done when the mint director orders production of new coinage and they are offically entered into the books. Go into any US redbook and you will see the exact number of coins that were made every year. The 1933 Double Eagle shows 445,500 but they were not released for circulation. I really don’t know how to explain this any different.
As for the numismatic value, these coins can be marketed for collectors, but it would be illegal and that is why it is hard to price them. Same thing for stollen art and artifacts like Papal Holy Releics, they have no real value because they are not suppose to be sold. If that is true for the coins, even the gold content does not matter as it is stollen property.
Sends a chill down your spine that Obama said at the he’ll need to engage in “persistent experimentation like FDR” to solve the economic crisis, doesn’t it?
A cautionary tale here... those who make similar finds should authenticate them through a numismatic expert and NOT a government bureaucrat. This is a damned outrage!
Another reason among many to hate that fascist FDR. POS.
Who’s gold was used to mint the coins?
“The FDR government should`ve been overthrown in a coup d`etat in 1935.”
Guiseppe Zangara came within a hair`s breadth of changing history when he attempted to take out FDR in Chicago in February 1933. When bumped by an onlooker, he inadvertantly capped Chicago mayor Anton Cermak instead.
One can only imagine how different things could`ve been.
There was a reason these coins were "under the radar" and since there is no paper trail it sure sounds as if these coins were stolen property (from the US Mint).
Well well well, if there was not a sign of inflation, here is one for you.
Soon the government will acknowledge the worthlessness of paper money and require like in Rome of old or the Middle Ages to be paid in gold for taxes.
Meanwhile Bernanke insists gold is not money...
Next is the guns, I suppose. What was that? OH, that gun buy back program, yeaaaaah!?....
“intent”? The judge can determine the intent of people long dead? And the government paper trail; the government is so good at keeping records, right. Like no one has ever had to clear up a paperwork error with a government agency.
This is seizure, plain and simple.
On prosecution, not seizure.
There are multiple magazine articles and even a hour-length TV show about the 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle [SGDE-33] (when the supposition was that there was a single surviving coin.)
First, no SGDE-33 was ever officially monetized which means none were ever made official money. Although 445,500 of them were minted in preparation for release, the newly elected President Roosevelt (FDR), took the United States off of the gold standard and ordered the repatriation/compensation of all gold bullion money at the same time he did multiple other emergency acts like Bank Holidays etc.
This was "Executive Order #6102" signed on April 5, 1933, 32 days after taking office. This was the nadir of public confidence in our own capabilities and a time of bank panics and people jumping out of windows. IMHO, 2008 was a walk in the park in comparison.
Anyway you look at it, by two different laws, no individual could lawfully own a single SGDE-33. What has become generally accepted deduction, an employee of the US Mint in Philadelphia, substituted pre-1932 Double Eagles for an unknown number of SGDE-33 as they were being melted down. Thus the weights matched and that was how they were doing the record keeping in 1934. Another generally accepted deduction is that the linchpin of this scheme is/was a Philadelphia jeweler and coin collector, Israel Switt. In 1944, he admitted to the US Secret Service that he was the source of the King Farouk (Eygpt) SGDE-33 as well as 7 others that the Secret Service had already seized. Since the Statute of Limitations on theft was 7 years, he was never charged for this but there were suspicions that he might still have more of these SGDE-33 in his possession.
Thus when his daughter found these 10 SGDE-33 coins in his safe deposit box after his death, there was no point in doing anything other than what they did. They were too closely watched to attempt to sell them and their only recourse was to hope for a favorable law suit outcome.
IMHO, the judge ruled correctly. These SGDE-33 were stolen property and the title remained with the original owner, the US Treasury. Regardless of time passing, no thief or heirs should benefit from stolen property.
The single LEGAL TENDER SGDE-33 coin is the "King Farouk" specimen that went through a 9 minute auction with a net price of $7,590,020 to British Coin Dealer Stephen Fenton. FYI: Not only is this the world's record for a single coin but the $20 bump at the end of that sum was to the US Treasury for 'balancing the books' and thus officially monetizing the coin (face value in 1933).
We had a story here a few months back where a guy found his stolen car 20+ years later being sold on Craig's List ~ he went and picked it up. The insurance company made no claim to it ~ 'cause they'd never claimed it ~ simply paid the claim when it was made at the time of the theft.
Amendment 4
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Sorry, folks, but clearly that ol’ parchment don’t mean sh*t anymore.
The gold in question is stolen and the inheritors have no ownership. There is no constitutional violation protecting thieves who voluntarily provide evidence
Bingo! And $200.00 wasn't chump change in '33, either.
The coins are probably sitting in O’ lockbox now.
“Executive Order #6102”
Rather haughty of FDR to supercede congress on such a large financial matter as this. If this is indeed a Democratic Republic and not a Kingdom, where did he get the authority to do so?
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