Free Republic

A family was awarded the rights to 10 rare gold coins possibly worth $80 million or more on Friday after a U.S. appeals court overturned a jury verdict. U.S. Department of the Treasury officials insist the $20 Double Eagles were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before the 1933 series was melted down when the country went off the gold standard. They argued that Joan Langbord and her sons cannot lawfully own the coins, which she said she found in a family bank deposit box in 2003. Langbord's father, jeweler Israel Switt, had dealings with the Mint in the...

It's a case that combines history and mystery--and very valuable gold coins. The stakes were certainly high: One of these rare $20 pieces sold for a record $7.59 million in 2002. Here's the story. A jury decided that a Philadelphia woman, Joan Langbord, who found the coins in her father's bank deposit box, never should have owned them, and that the U.S. government was right to take them back. The government argued that the never-circulated gold coins should never have been anywhere outside the U.S. Mint. Only a half-million of the coins were made. The rare "double eagle" coins, designed...