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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Drusus, post: 330979, member: 6370&quot;]Farouk was enamored by the glamorous royal lifestyle. Already fabulously wealthy with large estates, dozens of palaces and hundreds of cars, the king always wanted more. His appetite for food, women, and material goods seemed insatiable. He would travel the world on state visits and spend lavishly on extravagant shopping sprees and engaging in scandalous affairs. Sir Miles Lampson, the British high commissioner, described him in a report to the Foreign Office in 1937 as `uneducated, lazy, untruthful, capricious, irresponsible and vain, though with a quick superficial intelligence and charm of manner&#039;.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Those things he could not buy he stole. A peculiar practice for a king, he began stealing valuable objects and artifacts while abroad including a sword belonging to the Shah of Iran and a pocket watch from Winston Churchill. He is said to have mastered the dubious art of pick pocketing and would practice this as he mingled at gatherings earning the nickname &#039; The Thief of Cairo&#039;. This title referred not just to his penchant for stealing but his corrupt reign that fed his lavish lifestyle and his cronies to the detriment of his people....</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>...The new regime quickly moved to auction off the King&#039;s vast collection of trinkets and stolen treasures. Among the more famous of his possessions was a rare 1933 Double Eagle coin, though the coin disappeared before it could be returned to the United States.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The 1933 double eagle (United States 20-dollar gold coin) currently holds the record for highest price paid at auction for a single U.S. coin when it was purchased for US$7.59 million. 445,500 specimens of this Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle were minted in 1933, the last year of production for the Double Eagle, but no specimens ever officially circulated and nearly all were melted down, due to the discontinuance of the domestic gold standard in 1933.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>One of the missing Double Eagles was acquired by King Farouk of Egypt, who was a voracious collector of many things, including Imperial Faberge eggs, antique aspirin bottles, paperweights, postage stamps - and coins. In 1944 Farouk purchased a 1933 Double Eagle, and in strict adherence with the law, his ministers applied to the United States Treasury Department for an export license for the coin. Mistakenly, just days before the Mint theft was discovered, the license was granted. The Treasury Department attempted to work through diplomatic channels to request the return of the coin from Egypt, but World War II delayed their efforts for several years. In 1952 King Farouk was deposed in a coup d&#039;etat, and many of his possessions were made available for public auction (run by Sotheby&#039;s) -- including the Double Eagle coin. The United States Government requested the return of the coin, and the Egyptian government stated that it would comply with the request. However, at that time the coin disappeared and was not seen again in Egypt.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>A Double Eagle surfaced again after over forty years of obscurity, when Stephen Fenton was arrested by US Secret Service agents during a sting operation at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and the British coin dealer was questioned. Although he initially told investigators he bought the coin over the counter at his shop, he later changed his story. Under sworn testimony, he insisted the Double Eagle had come from the collection of King Farouk, though this could not be ascertained. Charges against Fenton were subsequently dropped, and he defended his ownership of the coin in court. The case was settled in 2001 when it was agreed that ownership of the Double Eagle would revert to the United States Government, and the coin could then legally be sold at auction. The United States Treasury issued a document to &quot;issue and monetize&quot; the coin, thereby making it a legal-tender gold coin in the United States.</p><p>When the coin was seized, it was transferred to a holding place believed to be safe: the Treasury vaults of the World Trade Center. When the court settlement was reached in July 2001, the coin was transferred to Fort Knox for safekeeping. Less than two months later, the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>On July 30, 2002, the 1933 Double Eagle was sold to an anonymous bidder at a Sotheby&#039;s auction held in New York for $6.6 million, plus a 15-percent buyer&#039;s premium, and an additional $20 needed to “monetize” the face value of the coin so it would become legal currency, bringing the final sale price to $7,590,020.00, almost twice the previous record for a coin. Half the bid price was to be delivered to the United States Treasury, plus the $20 to monetize the coin, while Stephen Fenton was entitled to the other half. The auction took less than nine minutes.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://www.cachecoins.org/Farouk.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>Farouk as a young man</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://www.cachecoins.org/farouk_lg.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>Forouk after a life of excess.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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