The Mint really took it back...

http://www.coinweek.com/education/n...states-mint-retakes-possession-aluminum-cent/

Wow. Integrity. How about letting that primo modern pattern coin out in the wild? I mean, the mint will just destroy it, a collector would hold onto it. Makes me ill. Cause you know that is what they will do. Destroy it.

 

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It their property , or the property of the US government , not an estate who received it illegally . No matter what your or our feelings are towards the piece. Justice is blind and the law is the law. It was never owned by the person whom gave it away,or the person who received it.
Stolen goods is the way the courts see it, and by definition it is!

 

Actually it's not. What really happened is the family gave up the fight as opposed to potentially bankrupting themselves fighting the endless appeals process the government would have/already was dragging them through funded by the tax payer.

The argument that lead to this piece being reclaimed applies to patters, errors, and anything struck on the wrong planchets as well yet those are allowed to exist. It has nothing to do with the letter of the law and everything to do with someone deciding to go after it to try and make a career for themselves on a high profile item wasting even more tax payer money instead of allowing the sale and actually bringing in tax revenue

 

that sucks.

 

It does suck. There should be a way to work these deals out without spending all the legal fees. That won't ever happen. Can't have a bunch of lawyers without work.

 

So they couldn't pay him for it? Buracracy in action my friends. At least they're not going to destroy it though. He should've started a gofundme account for legal fees!

 

Patterns before a certain date the mint does not have title to because they admitted they sold them to collectors. Errors are just like any other coin, and impossible to prove good title did not pass.

The family gave up the fight because they were wrong. Absent PROOF this was a gift from the mint to his relative, (which I doubt exists), their relative was a THIEF, and I am glad the mint too the ill gotten gains away. Did you read the article? The Denver mint did not even have permission to strike this coin, let alone strike it and then give them away. This was not an accidental piece, this was a piece struck intentionally to illegally profit.

 

Drinking at a retirement party, can cause lots of trouble .
One thing leads too another and when you get home, someone put a coin in your pocket, or so on ............

 

Same as the 1913 nickels but where's the government intervention with those?

 

Its the fact the government DIDN'T intervene that today makes them legal to own. Same would have been the case here. If the government let them be sold in the large auction, then a lawyer later would show that is "proof" they should be legal to own.

I am all for collecting what trips your trigger. But I am adamantly against theft. This is all this is, plain theft. I do not buy any "retirement gift" boloney. This former assistant superintendant had this piece, (and most likely others), illegally struck under his watch, and then stole one of them. If this former mint employee was still alive I would advocate jail time and revocation of his pension. There is a REASON this never was sold in his lifetime. The mint employee KNEW he was a thief, and risked prison if he tried to sell this in his lifetime.

 

Just because the mint hasn't intervened doesn't change the fact that they are still government property. Stolen property is always stolen property and valid title can not be passed to the next owner.

 

No it actually is property of the U.S. Government , it was never issued by the government , it was taken from the mint or stolen . So yes it actually is. And it's not a matter of wasting tax payers money Edited: STAY out of politics!! ,It a matter of holding stolen property . Ask any pawn shop on the rules of holding property that is known to be stolen.

 

I'm alright with the confiscation as I feel that it was illegally gained property, but I hope that the mint displays the coin as promised rather than destroying it or otherwise removing it from the hobby.

 

I understand the Mint has agreed to display the offending coin. And, yes, it is stolen government property, pure and simple.

 

Not all patterns were. Errors are not like any other coin that why they are called errors. Congress has never authorized off strikes, they have never authorized wrong planchet strikes, they never authorized the Sac Mule, they never authorized the 1913 nickel ect ect ect. The list goes on and on and on, yet they're all perfectly fine for now.

No they gave up the fight because when it was said and done their lawyer fees would have exceeded the price of the coin and not everyone has the money to make a stand on a moral ground when it comes to court cases.

It is a well known legal strategy to win by attrition by making it too expensive for the other side to continue the fight when they have limited resources at their disposal and being the government they have unlimited resources.

Actually in the real world people have to be proven they stole something EDITED: STAY out of political rants.
That is nothing more than your opinion and that is not the first coin that there are no mint records for. There is a long history of sloppy record keeping at the mint to put it nicely.

No it's not it's nothing more than a waste of tax payer money further the long and massively inconsistent history of the government just acting when someone feels like trying to make a career out of it.

The dime nail was never issued by the government either that recently sold, but its perceived value wasn't enough to make a career so they let that slide as a very recent example. You are kidding yourself if you think this was some sort of moral stand in the pursuit of justice by the mint.

 

Whether it's a moral stand or not, the heirs to the questioned coin were in possession of stolen government property and not entitled to sell it for personal profit.

 

Well the mint doesn't intend to destroy it, my thread from yesterday links to the mints own press release. I'm guessing it eventually ends up in the Smithsonian after many coin show tours.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/u-...to-display-it-eventually.276319/#post-2376291

 

It has never been proven it was actually stolen.

 

Well, they obviously didn't find it on the frigging sidewalk. I think we respectfully need to agree to disagree on this point.