Langbord-Switt 1933 Double Eagle Case

I look like hell in garters.

 

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Three judges joined in a dissent. Wonder if the Supreme Court will take an appeal of the case?

 

Not that selling the coins would make much of a dent in the national debt, but that is in fact what should happen. But then there is another legal precedent to deal with - the buyer of the Farouk coin understood when they bought that coin that it would be the only one legal to own...

 

It wouldn't be much of a precedent if it was deemed illegal. No court can enforce an illegal act.

Chris

 

You'll just have to post a picture now, won't you! ;-)

 

The U.S. Government / U.S. Attorney / U.S. Mint has won, and the Langbords have lost. The 1933 Double Eagles are, and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN the property of the U.S. Government. The only reason the crime family known as the Switt/Langbords ever came into possession of them is by criminal activity. The en banc 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals found so by a 9-3 decision. Judge Rendell, who had written the earlier 2-1 majority opinion, a legal piece of garbage from the day it was issued, could only find 2 of the other 11 to adopt her err, umm, "logic"(???).

We all own the 10 1933 Double Eagles, which is as it should always have been.

The opinion is precedential and now - woe be unto all he who might spring up with aluminum cents or 1933 Double Eagles or 1964-D Peace dollars.

 

Will they be melted or preserved?

 

No matter what anyone says, that decision should be delayed pending a thorough study by the field's top experts. May I suggest the informal discussion thereof will dominate the Anaheim ANA show next week?

Act in haste, repent in leisure.

 

Obviously the Langbord's got really really bad legal counsel that advised them that sending them to the mint for authentication was a correct thing to do. Frankly, if they had discreetly contacted some principals in the coin profession they could have sold the coins quietly and gone about their business.

Let me just add, the "theft" of the coins could NOT have been possible without someone in the mint staff being complicit in the deal by exchanging prior dates ie 1927 etc which had the correct weights, with the 1933. There is a primary suspect in this complicity, but now 83 years later he is long gone and it most likely couldn't be proved so long after the fact.

 

So much for the old saying "Possession is nine-tenths of the law....

There is -- or at least was -- an air of arrogance and entitlement on the part of the coin possessors.

 

Yet he WAS named in the latest opinion. George McCann. And the "exchanges" didn't happen until 1934 at the earliest, so they were unambiguously illegal. The melting of the nearly half million 1933 $20's wasn't done until 1937!!!

 

Let me assure one and all, and here I speak as a government employee, that if I were ever to convert government property to the use of another person, and that person secreted away such property, and subsequently died, that person's heirs DO NOT UNDER ANY THEORY OF LAW, take legitimate title to said property. It remains stolen government property in perpetuity. If the government wants it back, THEY GET IT, ... PERIOD.

Why do we Numismatists tolerate this "wink wink nudge nudge" criminality of certain government employees, just because they work for the mint? We wouldn't tolerate it elsewhere.

 

I think having retained the attorney who handled the Fenton/Farouk specimen, they thought they were, umm, golden (sorry), and they got cocky.

 

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I agree that fairness demands they at least be compensated for the bullion value. Equal face value of coins was deposited with the mint's cashier to get the contraband ones, or maybe $200 in 1933 dollars, scaled up for accrued interest. I wonder which is more.

 

Weren't these issued before Roosevelt's withdrawal order, and thus they should be legal to own though? The 1933 $10 eagle is legal to own...

Fun fact: Roosevelt was a coin collector himself and did not want to recall gold, however he had to.

 

No, the August 1 opinion has the full timeline. Roosevelt's order preceded any transfer of 1933's double Eagles to the cashier's office. There is no way any could have been issued legally.

 

I'm guessing you, perhaps wisely, choose not to follow certain "recent events".

 

If you're referring to a certain ambitious former cabinet official now seeking office, that was almost the opposite - she used privately owned assets to perform her government duties, not vice versa. She could have been, but wasn't, charged for illegally handing data, a non-physical government asset. But data has a certain redundancy - it can be retrieved from any party who had it. So I think perhaps that other fella used that fact to suggest another country might be able to render assistance.

But as for tangible property, she didn't "steal" a government Blackberry, she "stole" the government's ability to steal hers, and it's data, for better or worse.

 

No the government owns them. If we had any ownership say 100s of millions of dollars wouldn't have been wasted on chasing them for 80 years