The 1933 Double Eagle is one of the most well-known coins ever minted in the United States. It is also one of the rarest U.S. coins in existence. How this coin became so rare is an interesting story especially since over 400,000 Double Eagles were minted in 1933. Of these coins, less than two dozen actually made it out of the mint before the rest were melted down.
Double Eagle rare coins were minted from 1850 until 1933. The Gold Reserve Act put an end to production since the act outlawed private possession of gold. The law required that individuals sell most of their gold possessions to the Treasury. The 1933 Double Eagles that had already been produced were ordered to be melted down. It wasn’t until several years later that it was discovered that about 20 of the coins were stolen before they could be melted down.
The U.S. Mint’s chief cashier took the coins from a Mint bag and replaced these rare coins with Double Eagles from earlier productions. The bags were weighed and counted to ensure accuracy but the detailed mintmarks on the coins were not evaluated. The cashier’s act created an incredible rarity factor for 1933 Double Eagles.
A Philadelphia jeweler named Israel Switt eventually claimed 9 or 10 of these coins and later sold them to individual buyers. Saudi Arabia’s King Farouk acquired one of the coins for his collection. This particular Double Eagle eventually made its way into the possession of a British coin dealer named Stephen Fenton. Fenton was arrested when he tried to make a profit from the coin in 2002. However, he was able to make a deal to share the proceeds of the sale with the government. The single coin sold for $7.6 million at an auction.
Roy Langbord, Switt’s grandson, learned about his grandfather’s role in the Double Eagle once owned by King Farouk. Curiose about whether Switt may have had other valuable coins in his possession, he began to investigate the belongings that his grandfather left behind. Langbord was astounded to find a 1933 Saint Gaudens Double Eagle in a safe-deposit box that had been left unopened for many years. Even though Langbord decided to go the honest route by telling the U.S. Mint about his find, the coin was seized from him by the government without compensation since all specimens of the rare coins were initially stolen from the Mint.
