The Mystery Of The 1964-D Peace Dollar

Uhhhhh - there were 10 of them resting comfortably for decades in Izzy Switt's SDB that his heirs only opened up a few years ago. Then there is also the Farouk specimen which went "missing" after the Secret Service tried to seize it in Egypt during the sale of Farouks' coins in the mid 1950s.

 

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Purportedly it is in the Johnson Library.

 

Didn't know this. Can anyone elaborate?

 

Coins are not "monetized" until and unless they leave the mint with the Big Giant Head's permission. If they are not monetized they are not legal.

 

Anyone interested in facts, and not the rampant speculation and numis-myth that is pervasive in this thread, should really check out Roger Burdette's Red Book Guide of Peace Dollars.

 

Duh, I should have known that. Thanks.

Edit: Not legal tender obviously, but also not legal to physically possess?

 

Correct.

 

So if the mint director did actually send one over to the president, then that means LBJ was engaged in criminal activity. Grounds for impeachment!

 

Not sure whatever happened with that one. From the many threads I've read,all the dolllars sold to mint employees were recalled and then melted. Any that escaped are considered to be property of the US Mint.

 

Of course they had dies but they had to "make" the dies since the Peace Dollar programs had been disbanded 29 years earlier.

And they made coins as well but what they DIDN'T do, is count the number that had been made. As such, there was no inventory control AND no method of distribution. The ONLY way employees could exchange dollar for dollar, was through the cashier at the Denver Mint but the coins never even made it to the cashier before they were melted.

Note: These coins were produced in a separate building and not in the main coining building and they were produced with trusted employees.

As for the 2 supposedly found in the Washington Lab in the 70's? These were destroyed if they even existed at all.

If there was some photographic evidence that one existed, I would be super excited but the fact remains that none exists. There are ways of creating untraceable photographic evidence.

I'm on the disbeliever side regardless of who has said what. I need to "see" the proof.

 

The two coins in Washington DID exist. they were die trial pieces made at the Philadelphia mint.. They were found in files in the office safe of the Mint Headquarters technologist in 1970 and were destroyed. The documents relating to their destruction still exist.

There are no records of any of the coins being sent to President Johnson. This was probably a confusion over the two trial pieces sent to Washington to the technologist Johnson, Howard Johnson. ie: two coins sent to Johnson in Washington.

What do you say so called? It existed. (1965 appropriations bill passed July 28th 1964, contained an appropriation of $600,000 for the production of 45 million standard silver dollars.) And the creation of the 90% silver dollars was a political trade with powerful western Senators in order to get their support to get the coppernickel clad coinage approved. We'll authorize these if you'll vote to remove silver from the other coins. They agreed and voted for the clad coins but eventually lost out on the silver dollars.

I will agree though that it was stupid. But it was Washington.

 

That is a redundancy.

 

We would't want that in washington.

 

There is also no record of ANY having ever been confiscated and melted.

 

No record of confiscation of any what, 33 double eagles, or 64 peace dollars?

 

64-D Peace Dollars. The 33 Double Eagle seizures are well documented.

I was adding to Lee's comment about no photographic evidence of any 64-D Dollars

 

In 1953 King Farouk was deposed and came on market again upon finding the Secret Service was going to confiscate it disapeared for 40 more years until a British collector Stephen Fenton showed up with it it was confiscated he fought for years it was kept in the TwinTowers and moved just before 911 an agreement was reached between the Mint and S.Fenton to sell it and split the money it sold July 30, 2002 for 7.590,000 plus $20.00 to make it legal tender the buyer remained anonymous but when it shows up again it will be legal to sale. Israel Switts family lost the remaining 10 in court after they took them to the Mint for authentication. By Susan Headley

 

The 10 remaining examples are held by the US mint, but the Langbord family(Switt's heirs) are still fighting this in court. I highly doubt they will prevail because proving that a US mint employee sold Switt the coins is going to be a bit tough 81 years after the fact. At any rate Switt could not have obtained the coins without assistance from US mint employees or even the Secretary of the Treasury - William Woodin - a known coin collector and accumulator of similar items in his own collection.

 

There is some question as to whether the Fenton coin is actually the Farouk coin. At least one person who was at the Palace sale and who saw the Farouk coin has said that it is not the same coin.

But there was a time window during which gold cons could be exchanged for other gold coins at the Cashiers Window at the mint. And there were some 1933 double eagle in the cashiers window at that time. Did they keep a record of what dates they distributed, or just dollar amounts? I've never seen what the cashiers window books looked like.

The Treasury also allowed collectors to purchase coins from them y mail for face value. They had circulars that listed what coins were available. At least one bears a notation from the Treasury that the 1933 eagles and double eagles have now been struck. Did this imply that they could now be ordered? It was before the cut off for allowing any gold coins to be distributed.

 

they looked like this: