1933 double eagles: Gov't wins, Langbords lose

Disappointing, but maybe not surprising. Here's the brief Coin World article.

I wonder what will become of the coins. The Smithsonian doesn't need more. Melting seems so wasteful, especially after the expensive court case. Auctioning them would be very cool...unless you are the owner of the only one legal to have.
Lance.

 

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Not what I wanted to see but I won't second guess the jury.
It would be cool to here what the legal fees ran on this.

 

I'm sure they ran into the Gaudens of dollars.

 

I know there are many who would disagree, but I really felt from all of the reading, that the family knew all along, that they were stolen and illegal , but thought this was the right political time to try and get them. I hope they release the previous probate papers from his death, which the family tried to get suppressed and the judge allowed. IMO.

Jim

 

Sad day in whoville.



Hope all you with pattern coins hide them and don't let the gov't know you have them.

 

I agree with you Jim. I do know there are those who disagree, but from all I read, it really seemed that there was something amiss about how the coins were originally acquired and the continuing knowledge by the family of their existence. I really hope that the coins wind up in Museums and not locked away in a vault somewhere.

Gene

 

So who wants to guess what happens to them?

I say the govt auctions them through the mint, similar to what they did with the CC Morgans.

 

I say they are auctioned as well, but not for a while.... probably a few years.

 

Agreed with that - what I had read seemed to imply the family was in the right, or at least that is what I got from some of the stories. But not having seen what the jury saw I do not see anyway I could second guess them.

 

I saw another illegal coin today - a 1913 LIberty Nickel (on display in the ANA Museum). I wonder when the Feds will be coming to confiscate that coin that was never officially released.

 

Supposedly the gov't is prohibited from auctioning them under the terms negotiated with the anonymous buyer of the lone '33.
Lance.

 

Yes. That is the way I understand things, too.

 

These coins are priceless treasures, each one is unique and they have a great history behind them, they are part of our American numismatic heritage.

Which is precisely why I believe the heartless bureaucracy that is the US Government will destroy them.

 

unfortunately, I believe that the government will melt them or if not, at least Steven Fenton will sue to try to force them to. He is virtually the only one in this equation who stands to lose from their discovery

 

oh, and BTW, I believe that the Langbord family has others and floated a "trail balloon" with these 10 hoping that if they became legal that they could then admit to the possession of the rest.

I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't reserve at least 1 coin in case the outcome was unfavorable. They owned them "underground" for years, now the rest will return underground

 

With all due respect I disagree with the history statement, these coins have done nothing since being created except lie in some vault somewhere, never earned and never spent, that's where I believe a coin acquires history. The only thing they have seen is a bunch of lawyers arguing in a courtroom.
These coins have history
http://www.cointalk.com/t186396/
I hate to think of how much our government has wasted to acquire what pretty much comes to less than 10 ounces of gold. No wonder the federal Government is broke.

 

I disagree here. They could have sent in way less than 10 for a "trial balloon," like 2 or 3. I believe they did in fact send ALL of them to the gov't. Remeber, they just wanted them "authenticated" and were told, "thanks for returning stolen property." They didn't want and were not looking for a court fight.

So, if there are any left, this family doesn't have any left to be "authenticated."

 

They knew very well that they would either be allowed to keep all or none of the ones surrendered. The authentication argument is a red herring. They probably wanted to sell them all.

The reason that I feel the Langbord family has more is that they have more than a few and there are IIRC 17 more that are unaccounted for. If these 10 were legal to own, they could then let the rest surface. If you think about your 2 or 3 as a test balloon theory, my explanation becomes plausible if you think of it as them surrendering less than half of what they have.

Even now that they have lost these, they can still sell the rest on the black market.

I don't believe that anyone would surrender them all if they were unsure about their disposition especially if it meant losing all of them

 

Why would Fenton have anything to lose in the matter? He was the seller of the Farouk coin not the buyer. He made 3.5 million on it and has no stake in it or the Langbord coins. Frankly he probably made more money out of the sale of the Farouk coin splitting it with the government than he probably would have made just in the straight sale to Jay Parrino that the government interfered with.

 

If a number of 1933 $20 Double Eagles become legal to own, the value of Mr. Fenton's coin will plummet. He will lose thousands in an instant. His one of a kind coin will no longer be one of a kind and therefore worth much less. That's what he has to lose.