Posted on 07/06/2011 6:42:48 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
A jeweler’s heirs with a cache of rare $20 gold coins will fight for the right to keep them when they square off in court this week against the U.S. Treasury.
Treasury officials charge that the never-circulated “double eagles” were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1933. They could be worth $80 million or more, given that one sold for nearly $7.6 million in 2002. The coins come from a batch that were struck but melted down after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard in 1933
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It may never go to trial. I suspect that someone at the mint stole them or perhaps if they were semi honest, they threw a few pre-1933 double eagles in the pile to replace the ones they took (which is what I would argue). I would also argue that since the government melted down all the 1933 double eagles, they believed that they had no value other than the melt value so what does the government care if they melted 100,000 1933 DEs or 99,990 1933s and 10 1932s?
P.S. I hope the government loses because if they win, they can also argue that the five 1913 Barber nickles were stolen and they want them back.
Interesting fact is what I believe was exempt from FDR’s gold grab were coins for numismatic value, and jewlry. I understand that a lot of people became instant coin collectors in the ‘30’s.
Simple question.... If all the 1933 $20 gold pieces were stolen from the mint, why wasn't the one sold in 2002 seized also?
i believe it was seized by the treasury dept as well and they then got permission to sell it on the open market. That is how the price was established.
i believe it was seized by the treasury dept as well and they then got permission to sell it on the open market. That is how the price was established.
So the Treasurey sold the coin? What’s next get the Smithsonian to sell the 1849 Double Eagle?
Not really. FDR partially took us off the gold standard. The private possession of gold had nothing to do with the amount of gold that was backing the cash. He outlawed it to strengthen the dollar, which the depression was killing. Typical statist. Stick to your ideology (the government can control the value of the dollar) and destroy anything that disproves that theory (commodities).
Read non-PC history. The bank holidays were intended to stop bank-runs, but they were also used to confiscate gold.
Which still had some value up until 1964, when it was 90% silver. The next year they took the silver out. The dime is currently worth about two cents (www.coinflation.com).
As long as the dollar was backed by gold at a fixed ratio, the dollar wasn't getting 'stronger' or 'weaker.'
Roosvelt outlawed gold ownership so that paper dollars couldn't be redeemed for gold, allowing him to inflate the number of dollars in US circulation without needing to have the gold on deposit to back it. Roosvelt needed dollars to fund his New Deal initatives.
By outlawing domestic ownership of gold, he only needed enough gold on deposit to support foreign exchange of currency for gold. He was free to inflate the number of dollars in US circulation without ever having to 'prove' that there was enough gold on deposit to back it.
So Roosvelt did in fact took the dollar off of the gold standard domestically. (After all, if you can't redeem a paper dollar for gold, who cares if that dollar is backed by a certain amount of gold or not?)
Because of his actions, he and future administrations inflated the number of dollars in circulation to the point that there wasn't enough gold on deposit to cover foreign exchange, either, leaving Nixon no choice but to end the international redemption just as Roosvelt ended domestic redemption.
If Nixon hadn't closed the gold window, Fort Knox would have been wiped out by the UK and France.
My grandpa was one of them. He was a contractor in Chicago.
I remember, when I was in about third grade, he showed me his collection. Loads of $20 gold pieces. Also, $10 and $5. And plenty of silver dollars from various years and in various conditions.
All the female members of our extended family had bracelets and pendants, and what not, featuring US gold pieces. LOL!
There is a family legend about some relatives in financial trouble, in danger of losing a business. Gramps told them to go to a certain location and look through the ashes below the furnace. They did, and what they found bailed them out.
Gramps was a Donk, but FDR be damned!
There’s an independant mint operating with a restored press from the Denver mint bought at surplus auction. I couldn’t believe the blanks and misstrikes the guy hauled out of the guts of the thing, hundreds of them...
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