Feds Seize Familys Rare Gold Coins

[thaler]

A jeweler's heirs are fighting the United States government for the right to keep a batch of rare and valuable "Double Eagle" $20 coins that date back to the Franklin Roosevelt administration. It's just the latest coin controversy to make headlines.

Philadelphian Joan Langbord and her sons say they found the 10 coins in 2003 in a bank deposit box kept by Langbord's father, Israel Switt, a jeweler who died in 1990. But when they tried to have the haul authenticated by the U.S. Treasury, the feds, um, flipped.

They said the coins were stolen from the U.S. Mint back in 1933, and are the government's property. The Treasury Department seized the coins, and locked them away at Fort Knox. The court battle is set to kick off this week.

The rare coins (pictured), first struck in 1850, show a flying eagle on one side and a figure representing liberty on the other. One such coin recently sold at auction for $7.6 million, meaning the Langbords' trove could be worth as much as $80 million.

The coins are part of a batch that were struck but then melted down after President Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard in 1933, during the Great Depression. Two were given to the Smithsonian Institute, but a few more mysteriously escaped.

The government has long believed that Switt schemed with a corrupt cashier at the Mint to swipe the coins. They note that the deposit box in which the coins were found was rented six years after Switt's death, and that the family never paid inheritance tax on the coins.

A lawyer for the Langbords counters that the coins could have left the Mint legally since it was permissible to swap gold coins for gold bullion.

Authorities in the Roosevelt era twice looked into Switt's coin dealings, including his possession of Double Eagle coins. In 1944, Switt's license to deal scrap gold was revoked.

The battle over the Double Eagles is hardly the only recent coin contretemps. Two British metal-detecting enthusiasts are said to be locked in a bitter dispute over how to divide the profits from a horde of Iron Age gold coins that they unearthed together in eastern England in 2008.

And an 80-year-old California man was jailed in 2009 after allegedly hitting another man in the head with a metal pipe and firing a gun at a third man during a dispute over missing gold coins.

Some coin disputes involve more than wrangling over valuable collectors' items. In 2007, Secret Service and FBI agents raided an Indiana company called Liberty Dollar, in a bid to stamp out illegal currency. The firm was making "Ron Paul Silver Dollars," in honor of Rep. Ron Paul, whose presidential campaign advocates bringing back the gold standard

[whatsnext]

Justly so. Those were not for public consumption.

He must have died unexpectantly, why would he leave them in the box? Only an attorney and bank manager need be present at the opening(I think).

[Rodebaugh]

Justly so. Those were not for public consumption.

True, but if it was up to the guberment only two would be known......and that would be an even greater shame.

Can't wait to see this one play out. Hope she wins and the coins end up at Heritage. This could draw new folks into numismatics.

[Morsecode]

This happened 8 years ago, and Mrs Longbord nor her sons will live long enough to ever see their coins again. They, and approx. 6 others, are in a box in closet in a vault in the deepest cavern at Fort Knox. At present there is no legitimate pending litigation involving the disposition of any of them, and even if there were the coins are considered counterfeits, having never been monetized.

The only reason King Farouk's coin was finally allowed to be sold was due to the Bush administration's back room deal with Treasury to avoid an international embarrassment regards the Saudi royal family...who could've, had they chosen, simply sold the coin outside the USA. The Secret Service could not demand the coin from them in any case. And it didn't hurt that half the proceeds from the sale - plus $20.00 to monetize the coin - went to the Feds.

It's the only 1933 double eagle that can legally change owners, upon approval and a thorough comparison to high magnification photos Treasury took of the coin in 2001

[HoldingAg]

I think the family's first mistake was this: "But when they tried to have the haul authenticated by the U.S. Treasury, the feds, um, flipped."

Why couldn't they use a local coin shop or third party grader instead of going to the .gov? Is there something in the rarity of these coins that I am missing? Sometimes I am thick in the head.

[Morsecode]

I'll have to eat some crow here...the last time I researched this case about a year ago nothing was happening. But now, just this week, the Langbords have got their day in court in Philadelphia. The jury is hearing arguments today.

There could be some jury sympathy in the works. The fact that the coins were seized without due process as evil counterfeits, then paraded by the same gov't officials at several national coin shows, doesn't put the defense in the most righteous light. And the Langbords's attorney has, cleverly, pointed out that high ranking Mint officers have been spiriting away prototypes, patterns, and other rarities throughout the Mint's history. FDR himself, who started this whole mess over the 1933 double eagles, is known to have amassed quite a stamp collection with plate numbers 00001 utilizing a little Executive priviledge.

Interesting. If the jury awards the return of the 10 coins what happens to the remaining '33s that had been turning up since the 1940's? I imagine those heirs will be expecting their coins back. And the one party with the most at stake is the current owner of the King Farouk piece. If the gov't prevails, his $7 million coin will certainly benefit from the ruling. If the plaintiffs win, the uniqueness of that coin disappears, along with most of the $7 million.