It is one of the rarest run of coins ever minted. The mysterious $20 ‘Double Eagles’ minted in 1933 but never officially released have been pursued for over 60 years by Secret Service agents determined to take them out of circulation. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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And after 10 of the ultra rare coins were found in a Philadelphia family jewellers, intrigue surrounding the talismanic artefacts has been reignited.
Double Eagles were first minted in 1850 with a face value of $20.
But the 445,500 coins minted in 1933 were never put into circulation because newly inaugurated President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an order prohibiting the release of gold from the Mint.
The move was a desperate measure to rescue the banking system, which was in danger of collapsing as people withdrew gold as quickly as they could.
All the coins were ordered melted down in 1937, but a handful are believed to have survived, including two handed over to the Smithsonian Institution.
In 2003 Joan Langbord, the daughter of a Philadelphia jeweller, said she found the 10 coins in her father’s bank deposit bank after he died.
She said that her father could have acquired them legally, perhaps through a trade of gold scrap.
Langbord and her son, Roy, notified the Mint of the discovery and asked officials asked to authenticate the coins.
The mint confirmed they were genuine, then confiscated the coins.
Speaking at the time David Lebryk, acting director of the Mint, had announced in a news release that the rare coins, which were never put in circulation, had been taken from the Mint ‘in an unlawful manner’ in the mid-1930’s and now were ‘recovered.’
The coins, which are so rare that their value is almost beyond calculation, are public property, he said.
After a lengthy legal battle, last month a jury finally decided the coins belonged to government and would not be returned to the family.
