That Double Eagle, which is believed to have been part of a collection belonging to King Farouk of Egypt, surfaced when a coin dealer tried selling it to undercover Secret Service agents. In 2002, Sotheby's and numismatic firm Stack's auctioned off a 1933 Double Eagle coin for $7.59 million, the highest price ever paid for a coin. All the coins were ordered melted down, but a handful are believed to have survived, including two donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

The 445,500 coins minted in 1933 were never put into circulation because the nation went off the gold standard.

He said Mint officials could not prove that the coins had been stolen or were subject to forfeiture.ĭouble Eagles were first minted in 1850 with a face value of $20. Mint officials asked to authenticate the coins and then confiscated them after doing so, said the lawyer, Barry H. The family lawyer said Langbord notified the Mint of the discovery in September. She recently found the coins among the possessions of her father, longtime Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt. Langbord plans a federal court lawsuit to try to recover them. The coins, which are so rare that their value is almost beyond calculation, are public property, he said.īut Joan S. Mint seized 10 Double Eagle gold coins from 1933, among the rarest and most valuable coins in the world, that were turned in by a jeweler seeking to determine their authenticity.ĭavid Lebryk, acting director of the Mint, announced in a news release that the rare coins, which were never put in circulation, had been taken from the Mint 'in an unlawful manner' in the mid-1930s and now were 'recovered.'

Gold coins from the us mint