Posted on 09/08/2012 11:35:22 PM PDT by grundle
A judge has ruled that ten rare gold coins worth roughly $80 million belong to the U.S. government, not the family that possessed them, according to ABC News.
In 2003 Joan Langbord and two other family members opened a safety deposit box that belonged to Langbord’s father, Philadelphia coin dealer Israel Switt, and found the valuable collection. When they asked the Philadelphia Mint to authenticate the find, the coins were apparently seized without compensation and taken to Fort Knox.
The 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle is “one of the most sought-after rarities in history,” according to Courthouse News. Originally valued at $20 each, one owned by King Farouk of Egypt reportedly sold for as much as $7.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2002.
The Langbords unsuccessfully sued the government in 2011, alleging that the coins are rightfully theirs, and now they have lost the appeal.
Jacqueline Romero, assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, explained that the coins legally belonged to the government after Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered citizens to exchange their gold for cash in an effort to keep the banks afloat during the Great Depression.
“Those coins were all in a vault and were supposed to be melted,” she asserted.
The family maintains that in another seizure of the valuable coin, the government split the proceeds with the original owner after it sold for $7.59 million in 2002, and that the coins escaped the Mint legitimately through a “window of opportunity” between March 15 and April 5, 1933, the Huffington Post relates.
However, U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis Jr. wrote in his decision: “The Mint meticulously tracked the ‘33 Double Eagles, and the records show that no such transaction occurred…What’s more, this absence of a paper trail speaks to criminal intent. If whoever took or exchanged the coins thought he was doing no wrong, we would expect to see some sort of documentation reflecting the transaction, especially considering how carefully and methodically the Mint accounted for the ‘33 Double Eagles.”
“Nobody witnessed the disappearance of the 10 coins, but the jury could – and did – properly infer criminal intent,” Davis added.
Barry Berke, the family’s attorney, concluded for ABCNews.com: “This is a case that raises many novel legal questions, including the limits on the government’s power to confiscate property.”
I suppose I could say something snarky about restating the obvious, but "FDR was a thief." is the simple truth.
That is not the point, these coins were not suppose to leave the mint. It would be like if the mint stopped production of the penny, yet one roll of 2013 pennies made it out to the general public. The only way that could happen is if someone smuggled them out of the mint. This was the case for the 1933 Double Eagle. Banks could not order the coin, and mint records show no coins left the mint.
I believe that's "liberation", coming from our side.
The mint DID NOT meticulously track first strikings and issues and they were often exchanged to friends and relatives early. As long as the books balanced currency and bullion wise it wasn’t an issue...
Yea, there were only 10 of them, but you’d think they would AT LEAST had the mild stupidity to just send one in. You KNOW these morons vote for democrats, they’re the only people stupid enough to trust bureaucrats this much...
The only thing Chavez took was American dollars
What worthless jurors too, those people suck just as bad as the government...
Correct. These coins were stolen from the Mint. They were never issued to anyone. They are stolen property, and thus always belong to whoever they were stolen from. In this case, the government.
The statute of limitations would only apply to prosecuting the thief.
The property still belongs to it’s rightful owner. Just as stolen WW2 property still belongs to it’s owner, even though it was stolen so long ago.
If you find an old Ferrari in your grandfather’s barn, and it’s listed as stolen, it doesn’t belong to you simply because you have possession of it and you are not the person who stole it.
It belongs to the person it was stolen from, or the insurance company, if they paid the claim on it.
Selfish capitalist pigs! According to my math, with 80 million dollars, our present federal government could create as many as 16 temporary road-working jobs.
You didn’t have to “monetize” every years freakin’ issue. Also, the siezure (overall) was unconstitutional as all get out, but since about 1925 pretty much every politician in the US has had banker ‘nads slapping against their chins...
Additionally, those coins are worth exactly their gold content value because if they can’t be marketed numismatically, they can’t have numismatic value.
Their first mistake was getting the government involved with the coins. It’d be like inviting the DEA over to your house to grade the quality of your pot stash.
The FDR govt. should NEVER have been allowed to confiscate these gold coins....NEVER!
You’re correct, but the government should’ve had the good graces to at least give these a people a finder’s fee for finding stolen property and turning it in. Had they done that there would have been no lawsuit.
Really? If that is so, and the mint, as the boviating bench warmer cited, kept such meticulous records, why did they not list a loss of 10 ounces, or 10 coins?
Because the books balanced, someone either traded in $20 certs, or pre 1933 $20 coins for those... Ergo, they weren’t “stolen”...
The family can’t get them back anyway, betcha George Soros has first dibsies on all of them...
Yep.
In which case, I'm glad the government they want, and vote for, ripped them off so brazenly.
This judge should be tarred and feathered.
As should have Franklin Delano Roosevelt been tarred and feathered!
Tar and feather them, too. All 12 of ‘em.
Along with the judge.
The FDR government should have been overthrown in a coup d’etat in 1935.
I prefer the John Wayne method, a good rope and a fine hangin’.
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