http://en.rian.ru/world/20080204/98331846.html Why couldn't I find something like this when I clean my house ... All I get is Barbi parts, bent pokemon cards and an occasional half chewed raw hide ...
Um, a few errors I noticed in the article lol... No coin has ever sold for more than $7.5 million (another 1933 double eagle in fact) so the claim that any discovered coin could be worth twice that is a little dubious. If they ever found another 1933 double eagle, and the government didn't confiscate it, maybe it could auction for 9 or even 10 million but 15 million seems a bit much. Double eagles did in fact circulate, though maybe not as much as other coins, but certaintly weren't used exclusively for transferring funds between banks. It would be hard for Theodore Roosevelt to have a coin minted in 1933 in his personal collection, considering that he died in 1919. Just as it would be hard for him to give King Farouk a present that didn't exist until 14 years after he died. (King Farouk did buy, not receive as a present, a 1933 double eagle in about 1944... it is widely believed that the only 1933 double eagle the government declared legal to own is that coin.) Well after all those mistakes, could this be a legitimate find (by which I mean, did it really happen lol?) Maybe... the government didn't go on its search and destroy mission for 1933 double eagles until 1944, who knows how many might have left the country before they found them... 5 years ago, another 10 turned up that they missed (ownership still under dispute)... it is theoretically possible that another could have been found. For a second one to turn up in Egypt would be the mother of all coincidences, so I'm pretty skeptical of this being a real story (even if another was in Egypt, it's not the kind of thing that gets lost in a closet and forgotton about lol). So I'd say the possibility of this actually happening to be almost zero, though not completely impossible I suppose.
This assumes that the first one turned up in Egypt and was actually the Farouk coin. Some who saw the coin at the 1954sale have said that the Fenton coin was NOT the Farouk coin. As to how they got 15 Million, someone on another forum has suggested a possibility. If you took the price the coin brought in 2002 in dollar and expressed it in Euros at the exchange rate then current (which is how it would have been reported in Europe XXX number of Euros.), and converted that same number of Euros into dollars at TODAYS exchange rate it would come close to giving a dollar figure nearly double the 2002 figure.
