1933 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle

[Fr45h3R]

I got an newsletter from PCGS the other day and it had a small story on the 1933 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle.

Here is a small article i've found on the coin, and there is interesting reading you can find by just googling the coin.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/09/04/49923.htm

10 coins, worth around $80 million (US) would be nice!

[Sapyx]

The "$80 million" figure being thrown around for the value of these "lost coins" is based on the price of the sole legally-acquirable specimen being $8 million (it's the current record-holder for most valuable coin in the world). But logically, if there are 11 of them floating around rather than just the one, the price for each one would be lower. Simple supply and demand: more supply = lower price.

In comparison, there are eight known surviving 1804 silver dollars; market value for one of those is around $4 million. If all 10 of the "extra" 1933 double eagles come onto the free market (rather than all get donated to museums), I'd expect the final value to settle out at around $3 million each at most.

Which would be hard luck on the poor chap who paid $8 million for his "unique coin".

[trout]

I would imagine that the US government would be obliged to destroy the coins they seized as they did so on the premise that they were illegal to own.
If they don't then they had NO right confiscating them in the first place:dodgy:

[Sapyx]

Well, the reason they were "illegal to own" is they were never formally issued to the public; They were sitting in the mint vaults awaiting orders for release when the order came to destroy them instead. Not one ever left the vault legally. Therefore any in public hands had to have been stolen from the mint vaults before the order was acted on. Stolen government property is never legal to own, no matter how many times it changes hands after the theft or how many generations pass between the theft and the discovery.

This, at least, is the US government's claim. They've now won two court cases on the matter of these particular ten coins, so their claim has so far been deemed valid.

Once back in government hands, the government would be free to do as they wished with them - melt them down, glue them to the White House doors, or do what they did with the "legal" Farouk 1933 double eagle and officially issue them, thus allowing them to be owned by the public.

They have destroyed examples of these coins before. Ten 1933 double eagles were retrieved by the Secret Service between 1944 and 1952; all of them were destroyed. But the revoking of the ban against private ownership of gold bullion in 1970 has meant that the government is no longer legally obliged to do so; indeed, it has come to realize that selling off the surviving examples can be a nice little money-earner for them.

When the Farouk coin was seized and auctioned, half of the $6.6 million raised (that's after the auctioneer's commission was subtracted) went to the (former) owner; the rest went to the government. The government may in theory decide to be equally generous if/when these newly retrieved coins come up for auction, but they're not obliged to be. Especially since it is the descendants of the coin dealer at the heart of the theft scandal that would benefit from their sale.

The government's main problem now is this: if they decide to sell them, they've got to be pretty darn sure there aren't any more as-yet-undiscovered "illegal" 1933 double eagles out there, because once these 10 hit the market and circulate amongst coin collectors for a few decades, it will be all but impossible for the government to prove that any "new" coins are not in fact one of these ten.

[trout]

Great post sap, but at the end of the day who knows how many of these have been " Salted away".
Coming from a government the just prints money to get itself out of the Poo, Why not just auction them off to add to the coffers as a bit of a stop gap to the enevitable.

[Mister T]

I think any outcome where they're not destroyed is a good outcome.

[triplewitch]

If I recall correctly, the Farouk specimen was sold and monetized on the basis that it would be the only 1933 double eagle that would be legal to own-ever.  The government was reimbursed 20 dollars for its alleged 'loss' in return for the monetization.  The Langbord coins will never be able to be sold if they remain in the hands of the US government.  If the coins are returned to the Langbords as legal to own, the anonymous buyer of the Farouk coin will undoubtedly litigate.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_113399.html