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A family was awarded the rights to 10 rare gold coins possibly worth $80 million or more on Friday after a U.S. appeals court overturned a jury verdict. U.S. Department of the Treasury officials insist the $20 Double Eagles were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before the 1933 series was melted down when the country went off the gold standard. They argued that Joan Langbord and her sons cannot lawfully own the coins, which she said she found in a family bank deposit box in 2003. Langbord's father, jeweler Israel Switt, had dealings with the Mint in the...

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...

It's a case that combines history and mystery--and very valuable gold coins. The stakes were certainly high: One of these rare $20 pieces sold for a record $7.59 million in 2002. Here's the story. A jury decided that a Philadelphia woman, Joan Langbord, who found the coins in her father's bank deposit box, never should have owned them, and that the U.S. government was right to take them back. The government argued that the never-circulated gold coins should never have been anywhere outside the U.S. Mint. Only a half-million of the coins were made. The rare "double eagle" coins, designed...

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

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,

...The interest in coins comes as sophisticated investors are increasingly looking for assets outside of the U.S. stock market, which many market observers expect to post only modest gains during the coming year. In buying rare coins, individuals not only acquire a collectible asset, but they are also getting exposure to precious metals. The prices of gold and silver, from which many popular U.S. coins are made, are both rising smartly. The Internet and coin-grading services are playing a part in drawing a new breed of coin investors. The Internet allows collectors to buy and sell rare coins at locations...