Talk:1933 double eagle

Contradiction

Contradiction: "On July 30, 2002, one was sold at Sotheby's..." contradicts "Currently, 1933 Double Eagle coins can not be the legal possession of any member of the public...". Resolve by adding ", with the exception of the one sold on July 30, 2002" after "Currently"? --Elvey 19:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that works. So far this is the only one of the 1933 double eagles the government has declared legal to own.

Isn't there a statute of limitations on theft? Even if Israel Switt did steal the coins, it was decades ago.

Maybe, but that would only affect the ability to throw the thief in jail, and wouldn't affect the legal authority to confiscate and destroy the property. The article is not very clear on whether criminal charges were attempted, and what they were. That'd be a good addition. For all we know there's some anciently-drafted crime titled "theft of a non-officially-issued US Mint coin" with no statute of limitations that could be cited. Tempshill (talk) 05:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Dated Link

I see the link to the story that says, "Press Release US Mint: United States Mint Recovers 10 Famed Double Eagles," but if I remember correctly, that was resolved and the person was able to keep the coins by paying $20 in US Reserve notes for the coins. I remember seeing a press conference about it. Did this happen? If so, this should be updated. —Slipgrid 19:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Small POV objection

The lead says, "In order to end the 1930s general bank crisis, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 in 1933 and the Gold Reserve Act in 1934.."

To me that sounds as though it implies the act was legal, logical, and effective. You will find many (myself included) who believe that it was an unconstitutional high crime, that it was ill-conceived, and that it made the Great Depression far worse than it might have been. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.152.63 (talk) 04:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not these pieces of legislation made the Depression worse or better isn't the subject of this article. It's mentioned here as the reason why ownership of a 1933 double eagle is illegal, that's all. --Modemac (talk) 16:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Egyptian coin

I hope I don't have to labour this point: Stephen Fenton is a living individual so anything we have to say about him and the ownership of the coin must be properly sourced from reliable independent secondary sources. Guy (Help!) 23:31, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Correction to Info Box

Made a couple of changes to the contents of the info box.

Changed the composition to 90% gold, 10% copper from 97% gold, 3% copper Changed the edge description from "reeded/milled" to "lettered - E Pluribus Unum"Almostfm (talk) 07:32, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.usmint.gov/auction/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=theStory
  • In 1933 Double Eagle on 2011-05-25 03:05:07, 404 Not Found
  • In 1933 Double Eagle on 2011-06-02 12:13:19, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 12:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

the highest price

for a U.S. coin, is it the highest in the world or not — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.170.229 (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

File:Specimen1Obv.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Specimen1Obv.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on October 9, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-10-09. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —Howcheng (talk) 16:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The 1933 double eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a $20 face value. 445,500 specimens of this Saint-Gaudens double eagle were minted in 1933, the last year of production for the double eagle, but no specimens ever officially circulated, and nearly all were melted down due to the discontinuance of the domestic gold standard in 1933. It currently holds the record for the highest price paid at auction for a single U.S. coin, having been sold for $7.59 million.Photo: United States Mint

When on display?

A "When" marker has been attached to the statement that two coins were recently on display, because it is not apparent when they were on display. -- SEWilco (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Most of around 20 coins should be more than 7, right?

There's something fishy in the first paragraph. Around 20 coins survived. Most of them were seized and destroyed. Yet, 13 are accounted for in the next paragraph.

I wonder if most of the surviving coins were seized but not destroyed. If they are the ones now at Fort Knox and in the national collection, the figures would add up. Mumiemonstret (talk) 14:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I think I solved this by rephrasing, after reading the entire article... :) Mumiemonstret (talk) 14:40, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

File:Specimen1Rev.jpg

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Specimen1Rev.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 24, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-08-24. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The reverse of a 1933-dated specimen of the double eagle ($20 gold piece) designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. 445,500 specimens were minted with this date, but after the Gold Reserve Act withdrew the legal tender status of gold coins and outlawed most private possession of gold, almost all were destroyed.

Only two double eagles were intentionally spared; they are in the National Numismatic Collection of the National Museum of American History. But at least twenty more were stolen by an unidentified person. Of these, nine were melted down in the 1940s and 50s and ten more are held at Fort Knox. Another, which had belonged to King Farouk of Egypt, was recovered in 1996 and sold at auction in 2002 to an anonymous bidder for almost 7.6 million dollars.Coin: Augustus Saint-Gaudens; photo: United States Mint

these numbers don't add up

OK, let's see. Two were purposely kept and are in a museum. Then we have:

• Ten were recovered from Israel Switt's family in August 2005
• King Farouk's one was eventually remonitized and sold to a private person.
• Nine were destroyed by the Secret Service -- eight in 1944-45, one more in 1952

20 total. So were does the "Five are still missing" in the lede come from? It can't be right (unless I'm missing something or the other parts of the article are wrong) so I deleted it. Herostratus (talk) 00:48, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Your math doesn't add up. 2 (in museums) + 10 (seized in 2005) + 1 (King Farouk's sold at auction in 2002)

                        + 9 (Destroyed in '44, '45 & '52) + 1 (recently given to the US Govt.)
                        = 23 (13 known to still exist) so far...!

Langbord family wins court victory

Does this AP story really mark the government's last word, meaning that the "Langbord Ten" (the coins were actually listed as "John Does 1-10" in the family's court case) will potentially enter the open market now? Though the family is not commenting and there is no date certain for the coins' return, there's sure to be more press on this; let's endeavor to update the article accordingly. Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 22:42, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

On reading the court's ruling, I am not certain CoinWeek's interpretation of "John Does" 1-10 is actually correct here... Perhaps someone with legal training can follow the pdf link within the CoinWeek article and help clarify? Thanks — Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 01:34, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that was a federal circuit appeals court ruling, which I believe that the only appeal would be to the Supreme Court. The government will probably only only appeal if the court was just plain wrong (that is, they did respond within the 90 days, or the court is reading the law wrong and they didn't have to) which is very unlikely; I don't they would or even can appeal on the grounds of "Yeah we messed up, but c'mon, be reasonable". And then the Supreme Court would have to accept the case which they accept only about 1% of cases appealed to them. So it's probably over. Whether they have to turn them over soon or can wait until the time limit to make an appeal has run out I don't know. Herostratus (talk) 15:37, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Diagram of where the coins have gone

If someone could create a diagram to help visualize the whereabouts and fate of the the 20 or whatever amount of coins that would be great !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asherkobin (talk • contribs) 09:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

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