Family Sues Mint Over Rare, Valuable Coins

AP/AOL ^ | 12/06/2006 | JOANN LOVIGLIO

[BradJ]

PHILADELPHIA (Dec. 5) - A family is suing the U.S. Mint, saying it illegally seized 10 gold coins that are among the rarest and most valuable in the world that the family found among a dead relative's possessions.

......

There were 445,500 minted in 1933, but they were melted down before being released into circulation when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard.

A handful escaped, however. Two were deliberately set aside and are at the Smithsonian Institution. The Mint has said any others in existence were obtained illegally,

[BradJ]

I'm sure the govt would love to take those off someone's hands, but its still theft on the GOVT's part.

[BradJ]

oops didn't mean to post the authors name in the title

[ArrogantBustard]

The Mint has said any others in existence were obtained illegally,

Isn't "obtained illegally" another way of saying "stolen"? If the Mint is right, the family was in posession of stolen property. One has no right to keep stolen property.

[AlextheWise1]

no, its not theft, its recovery of stolen property, if they are real, they are stolen goods.

[Trajan88]

this has got SCOTUS' review written all over it... may take years to reach that venue, if at all.

Should be quite interesting to see it play out.

[stylin19a]

I wonder why the family would even think of taking 'em to the mint in the first place ?

[Roccus]

Not exactly Mensa card holders.

[BradJ]

yet mentioned later in the article the the mint has already been forced to cave once

"but agreed after a lengthy court battle to allow one of the coins to be sold at auction in 2002 for $7.59 million - the highest price ever paid for a coin - after its owner agreed to split the proceeds with the Mint."

[AuH2ORepublican]

I was going to say, that Joann Loviglio sure is a bigshot, since not only did she create those rare, valuable coins, but her name needs to be written in uppercase at all times. : )

[Dog Gone]

The coins were never released into circulation, so they were stolen from the mint.

I'm not sure I have much sympathy for the family, and I sure don't have much respect for their intelligence in giving them to the mint to verify authenticity.

[hinckley buzzard]

This is no different than if a mint employee somehow managed to leave work one day with a few silver dollars in his pocket. They are stolen goods, even if not recovered till 70 years later.

[eastsider]

Not exactly Mensa card holders.

OTOH, if these people prevail in court, the added lore attached to the coins will have appreciated their value.

[baltoga]

Family made a serious mistake when it handed over the coins for authentication. No doubt the offer to authenticate was a ruse.

Possession is 9/10th of the law and the family is most likely SOL.

[Orange1998]

I dunnoooo, Possession is 9/10's ownership. Also the limitations may have ran out after 70 years. Given the fact the other coin proceeds were split could be precedent.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

""The Mint's lawless position is that by merely claiming the coins were somehow removed from the Mint unlawfully in the 1930s, they can take the Langbords' property without proving it in a court of law," Berke said."

They didn't take the property, the lady gave them the property. What a dimwitted move. The rule is that one who possesses property has a better right to it than anyone, other than the TRUE owner. When there is a question as to who the TRUE owner is, the possessor is in the best position.

If I claim that I own something, and the person that I have the claim against actually hands the property over to me, you bet your sweet bippy I am not going to give it back. I'll let THEM prove in a court of law that they have a better right to it than than I do. Which I think is going to be her burden to do, as it seems that the PRESUMPTION ought to be that they were obtained from the government illegally.

[stylin19a]

especially considering the dead guy was a jewler.
How does the family NOT trust a guy who was probably a metals expert ?

[Roccus]

They will lose. They're gonna spend the money they got from the one coin to try and get mega bucks and the only one who will profit will be the lawyer who convinced them to do so.

[VOA]

While I approach Wikipedia with a "verify before trusting" attitude,
here's a pretty good write-up on the double eagles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Double_Eagle

As for the books under "Further Reading", I think it may have been
David Tripp I heard on The Dennis Prager Show disussing the long history
of the double eagle(s?) found in the collection of King Farouk of
Egypt.
IIRC, the real message was the incredible time and effor the US Mint
had WASTED trying to recover a few coins (granted, they were originally
stolen) when they should have just let 'em go and build the hype
for US coins.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

I'm not so sure that the statute of limitations is going to help the lady. For one thing, statutes of limitations on stolen property may toll [become suspended] when property has been stolen and then concealed.

Also, the statute of limitations is a limitation on the right to sue, or prosecute. It does not mean that when the statutory period ends, "Presto" the true owner of the property changes. It just means that the true owner cannot use the courts as a means to recover the property. If there was a statute of limitations and it ran, all it did was prevent the government from suing for return of the coins, or prosecuting for theft. But now that the government has the coins, they don't have to sue. In other words, the lady could use the statute of limitations as a "shield" to prevent the government from taking the coins away from her, but not as a "sword" to force the government to return them.

I don't see any constitutional issue here, or any other reason why this should get to the Supreme Court

[spanalot]

maybe they kept the big bag.