Who owns these coins?
 

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) - March 14, 2007 - A family that asked the U.S. Mint to authenticate 10 extremely rare coins cannot prove they were obtained legally and has no right to them, government lawyers argue in court papers.


<HR>The gold coins, 1933 "double eagles" that were never circulated, could be worth millions of dollars apiece. A comparable one sold for $7.59 million in 2002 - the highest price ever paid for a coin.
Plaintiffs Joan S. Langbord and her two sons say they discovered the cache in 2003 in a safety deposit box belonging to her late father, Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt.
They approached the Mint the next year and agreed to turn them over to be authenticated, the Langbords say. But the Mint - after vouching for them - refuses to return them on grounds they were stolen U.S. property.
"Plaintiffs fail ... to plead any fact to support their implication that Switt legally obtained the 1933 Double Eagles," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel M. Sweet wrote in the brief filed Friday. "(That) supports a reasonable inference that Switt obtained the 1933 Double Eagles knowing that they were stolen property."
Langbord, 76, still works at her father's store on Jeweler's Row, a few blocks from the Mint. She was out of the country Tuesday and could not be reached for comment, a business partner said.
In her December 2006 suit, she and sons Roy Langbord of New York City and David Langbord of Virginia Beach, Va., ask for the return of the coins or a settlement of up to $40 million.
At a minimum, they say, they deserve a trial over the alleged seizure.
Prosecutors argue there was no forfeiture involved because the Langbords never had rightful ownership in the first place.
"A thief cannot convey good title to stolen property," Sweet wrote.
More than 445,000 of the gold double eagles were minted in 1933, but they were melted into gold bars after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard.
In 1944, the Secret Service traced 10 separate double eagle coins that had surfaced to Switt. He acknowledged selling nine of the coins, but said he did not recall how he had gotten them.
"Every single one of the 1933 Double Eagles traced back to Israel Switt," prosecutors said.
Switt was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out. However, he was convicted of violating the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 in a separate case, and had his license to deal scrap gold - which involved him with the Mint on occasion - revoked.
Prosecutors also argue in their brief that someone other than Switt stashed the coins in the bank deposit box. The Wachovia Bank box was rented in 1996, six years after Switt died, they said.
And the family did not list the coins or pay taxes on them when his will was executed, they said.
Roy Langbord, an entertainment lawyer in New York, referred questions to the family's lawyer. His brother did not immediately return messages.
"We strongly disagree with the government's positions, and we're looking forward to making our arguments to the court," said family lawyer Eric Tirschwell.
Double eagles, first struck in 1850, are so named because they had a face value of $20, twice the amount of gold coins known as eagles.
Two of the 1933 coins, which feature a flying eagle on one side and a figure representing liberty on the other, were permitted to be spared from the melting pot and are at the Smithsonian Institution, but a handful of others also mysteriously survived.
The coins at the center of the lawsuit were briefly displayed last year for an American Numismatic Association's convention in Denver. They have been secured at the U.S. Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, Ky. (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Re: Who owns these coins?
 

1st mistake: they turned them over to the government to authenticate them.
Rule number VIII - what the government doesn't know you have, they can't steal.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

You got that right. Remember folks, if SHTF, and you are not sure if your PMs are real or not, don't go to the goverment to authenticate them.:D

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

Wow, seems I remember that they took the ocins to a dealer, and the dealer ratted.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

Actually, the family is the coin dealer. I read about this story last year when this first broke. It appears as though the father had connections at the mint. The guy sold him (maybe under the table) 10 1933 gold double eagles. As it happened, the '33 double eagles were never released. The confiscation order came before the release. So, no one could have legally purchased the coins. They were contraban once they left the mint.
The only one thought to exist, was the one that sold for millions in 2002. It had some travelling miles under its belt by the time they found it. It had become the property of some sheik or prince in the mid-east. Eventually, the owners were able to show that they had come by it legitimately, and the mint made a deal to allow it to be sold. Of course, they didn't have their sticky hands on it, the rightful owners kept it away from them.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

:mad_m: Throughout the history of the various US Mint(s) theft was a common occurrence.

Even mint directors themselves sometimes stole rare coins and sold them to deep pocket speculators/coin dealers for personal profit.

Mint employees sometimes knocked off a few hundred coin samples on the QT and carried them out the door without detection...or with the knowledge of management who were party to the thefts.

Years later coins would show up on the open market at ballistic prices that had never been authorized for public release.

Rather than fire the directors or employees responsible for the theft they turned a blind eye to every occurrence and denied the guilty party(s) involvement.

Basically no one was,or will be prosecuted regardless of how incriminating the evidence.....they take care of their own.
Typical pass the buck until it dies so everyone involved walks away clean.
Sort of reminds me of our present government policy.

Back on topic....
If even one illegal coin slipped out the door everyone from the director to the janitor should have been jailed and convicted as accessory to theft of government property...if no one squealed...let them all do hard time.

Did this happen ? Of course not....being a federal employee gives you 100% immunity from prosecution...no matter how bad you FU or how much you steal.

Who in their right mind would let the government verify authenticity of a coin never supposed to have existed for release ?

These are some brain dead,mentally challenged people...the dumbed down education system is definitely graduating some blue ribbon winners.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

Took the words right out of my mouth

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

What's puzzling to me is, why did they send more than one to be verified? Makes no sense to me, unless there were perhaps minor variations, and the handfull of coins sent in, was a representative sample of a much larger hoarde.

But, yeah. It has dumbass written all over it.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

Isn't there a time limit for prosecution for theft? It seems to me that 80 years after the fact, the coins belong to the family.

If the government has confiscated without being related to a crime, they aren't holding the coins so much as one big financial liability.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

"Israel Switt" = Jewish

Daughter gives known illegal coins to US Government for "authentication," proving that theory "all Jews are smart" is a myth.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

The Feds are operating on the idea that 1933 Saints were never lawfully released, and possession of them is prima facie evidence of theft.

Re: Who owns these coins?
 

The book I recommended on this forum "Double Eagle" covered the sale of King Farouk's coin. They traced the provenance back to Israel Switt. I can almost promise you that all his natural heirs were probably under government surveillance. The author suggested that he probably had more than the one that had already surfaced. So the kids or grandkids holding on to them was probably not gonna happen.

Plus, they can probably make money off media rights that will be generated by this new chapter in the game. Otherwise them little suckers were just hiding in the safe deposit boxes not making them any money ya know?

If they have a good agent they ought to be able to play this right. Maybe sell the rights to some Hollywitzim for a TV miniseries or something. I think Woody Allen should play Israel Switt, or maybe Gilber Gottfried.

http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/s...844Gilbert.jpg