This story is no different than a war trophy NFA weapon being found in the attic. Once contraband always contraband to the gubermint.
The first article I ever posted on FR, about 8 years ago, was FDR's executive order ordering the confiscation of gold. Amazing reading. Talk about a fascist in socialist clothing. I'm amazed that the debunking of FDR hasn't reached more corners of the universe than it has.
The war trophy analogy is not correct. Owning full auto machine guns is illegal. Owning any an all manner of gold coins is not. US Citizens were required to turn in gold coins in 1933. Many did not. Many coins were outside the USA and thus outside the jurisdiction of FedGov. When citizen ownership of gold was permitted again (Nixon?) it again became legal to own all years and types of gold coins. For instance my grandmother gave me a 1898 $2 piece before she passed. That was legal. It may have been illegal for her to hold it (or not, because there was an exception for rare coins in collections and obviously even in '33 and 1898 piece was old, and obviously she didn't try to spend it in the intervening 50 years :-) but today it is totally legal to own.
I think the argument here is that none of these were ever placed in circulation so they are stolen. But that says that the Treasury dept's 70 year old records are more accurate than the facts on the ground (ie: this lady has 10 of them). It's a corner case.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the information.
I cannot imagine that the gold confiscation EO was legal or constitutional.