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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GoldFinger1969, post: 4617212, member: 73489&quot;]The judge laid down the rules before the trial: <b><i> if the jury found for the government, they keep the coins.&nbsp; If the jury found for the Langbords, he -- the judge -- will decide who gets the coins.</i></b></p><p><br /></p><p>In other words, we have the old Ralph Kramden &quot;Heads I Win, Tails You Lose&quot; guidelines. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>I don&#039;t think RWB was discredited.</b>&nbsp; He wasn&#039;t even allowed to testify fully on Philly mint operations at the time.&nbsp; Hell, Burdette -- NOT the Mint -- is the one who got the initial coining date correct (March 2, 1933)...noted they were with the Cashier by March 4th....and lots of other critical dates.&nbsp; You would think the government/Philly Mint would know their operations better than an outsider but that wasn&#039;t the case.</p><p><br /></p><p>I agree that the U.S. Attorney&#039;s were very good at throwing mud at RWB and confusing the jury and distracting from the real issue at hand.&nbsp; Having a biased judge with an inflated sense of his own intellect also didn&#039;t help.</p><p><br /></p><p>I also don&#039;t think the Langbord&#039;s attorney(s) did as good a job here as they did with the settlement negotiation on the Farouk coin.&nbsp; At one point the judge -- actually helping the Langbord side -- told their attorney he was losing the jury with minutae by focusing on a thousand different points of interest and facts (something I can relate to <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ).&nbsp; When the judge tells you you are not only losing him but some of the jurors are falling alseep on your intricate points of fact, you are in trouble.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think that really mattered, unless the jury was dumber than they appeared (quite possible <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ).</p><p><br /></p><p>I think the Langbord&#039;s needed to utilize a KISS strategy -- Keep It Simple Stupid -- as there was no way a lay jury was going to understand detailed Mint operations.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #0000ff">I would have focused on the following:</span></b></p><ul> <li>There was no gold missing, hence the coins could not have been stolen.</li> <li>The Mint didn&#039;t even know key dates for 1st striking of 1933&#039;s and when they were at the Cashier, so how can they say their records were complete and accurate ?</li> <li>They didn&#039;t know that the Fenton/Farouk coin had a Treasury Export License -- before that they wanted the coin back AND the owner criminally prosecuted.</li> <li>The Mint has been obsessed with getting back exchanged 1933&#039;s because they got BURNED with the actually STOLEN 1928 Saints....250, worth $5,000 at the time.</li> <li>You had over a month (until April 12, 1933) to coin-for-coin exchange 1933&#039;s.</li> <li>43 of the 1932&#039;s got destroyed and were replaced with 1933&#039;s....these coins were with the Cashier as of March 4th.</li> <li>Over 35 of the 1933 Eagles are out there.&nbsp; The Mint says they are &quot;legal&quot; because they can&#039;t tell which of the 35 coins are among the 5 that are legally recorded and which of the rest were done via legal exchange (or stolen, in the Mint&#039;s parlance <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> ).&nbsp; In other words, had a single 1933 Double Eagle been recorded in the books, ALL 1933 DE&#039;s would be legal to own because they can&#039;t tell which ones are the legal one(s) and which are the exchanged/stolen ones.&nbsp; Pretty flimsy reasoning, if you ask me....</li> <li>If the coins are &quot;national treasures&quot; and not destined to be destroyed, why not thank the family that preserved them instead of denigrating them ?</li> </ul><p>The initial trial court locked in a set of &quot;facts&quot; that are not representative of what really happened in 1933.&nbsp; Higher courts were bound by them (unfortunately).</p><p><br /></p><p>And it&#039;s not a perfect analogy, but when you go into a bank and deposit $100...they give you a receipt with an updated balance.&nbsp; Go into that same bank and give them $100 and ask for two $50 bills.&nbsp; They give it to you -- without a receipt.&nbsp; Same thing with coin-for-coin exchanges for the most part for decades leading up to the events of 1933.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think our hobby is the poorer for this idiotic decision.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i><span style="color: #b30000">BTW....Burdette&#039;s new Saint-Gaudens book has a few new and detailed pages of what happened with the 1933&#039;s.</span></i></b>&nbsp; It makes for good reading.&nbsp; He focused on the new hires at Treasury and Mint making decisions in the 1940&#039;s and not the folks who were there in the 1930&#039;s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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