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1933.
Double.
Eagle.
It’s a series of words that means nothing to most people, but that inspires fantastic
emotions in a very particular group of individuals.
Like “Szechuan sauce” for Rick and Morty-heads or “brokered convention” for political
junkies or “Tampa, Florida” for fraternity members, so too does 1933 Double Eagle provoke
chills of excitement for its fans: coin collectors… who you can also call numismatists, if you
want to prove you have the best words.
You see, from 1907 to 1932, the United States Mint produced something called the Saint-Gaudens
double eagle gold coin.
It was called Saint-Gaudens because that was the name of the man who designed it, it was
called the double eagle because an eagle was worth $10 and it was worth $20, and it was
called a gold coin because its gold-flavored design was inspired by the 2017 Brockhampton
song entitled Gold.
However, in 1933, the United States was going through this thing called the big bummer,
which is also sometimes referred to as the great depression, and back then, the United
States’ currency was on something called the gold standard—every piece of currency
issued by the Federal Reserve had to be backed up by a piece of actual gold held in a government
vault.
Of course, that meant that in order to make the money printer go brrr you had to have
actual gold, and it did so happen that the US President, Franklin Roosevelt, requested
for the money printer to go brrr.
Therefore, FDR issued Executive Order 6102, which forbade “the hoarding of gold coin,
gold bullion and gold certificates within the continental United States.”
By the way, if you were wondering, we moved off the gold standard in 1971, and now the
US Dollar is backed up by nothing by trust, apple pie, and the American Dream.
Anyways, when FDR issued executive order 6102, the US Mint had already produced a whole new
batch of double gold eagles—but, of course, the US Government didn’t want to be distributing
more gold coins when their whole goal was to have people turn in all their gold coins,
so, they ordered all those beautiful new 1933 double gold eagles to be melted down, apart
from two which were to be presented to the US National Numismatic Collection, which is
a thing that exists for some reason.
And that should have been the end of it, but we’re only about halfway through our six
minute watch-time, so you know it isn’t, because while there should have been only
2 left, we now know that at least 22 remained—which, of course, means that twenty were stolen.
That’s why ownership of these coins is illegal—because all but two were supposed to be melted down
in 1933, any 1933 double eagle currently out in the world can only exist—and not be a
melted down hunk of metal—because it was stolen from the US Treasury in 1933.
That’s why, in 1944, the US Secret Service put together a task force to investigate rumors
of circulating 1933 double gold eagles, because the Secret Service’s job is both to protect
the president and to investigate currency-related crimes.
After all, why just have the coolest sounding job in government when you could also have
the most-boring sounding job in government?
Well, maybe not most boring—I’m looking at you, comptrollers.
Anyways, in 1944, the Secret Service tracked down seven coins—stolen by a US Mint cashier
and passed through Philadelphia jewelry dealer Israel Switt—and melted them down.
Soon after, they found and melted another one, and in 1952, one more.
Then, in 2005, over a half-century later, they found ten additional 1933 gold eagles
in possession of Switt’s family, and after a lengthy court battle, the coins were declared
to still be US government property, and are now held in a vault at Fort Knox.
But if you’ve been counting carefully, you’ll have noticed that that’s only 21 coins—2
in the numismatic collection, 9 melted down, and 10 in government possession—but, of
course, in total, there were 22.
You see, before any stolen double eagles were made known to the US government, King Farouk
of Egypt bought one from Israel Switt in 1944, and when he did, he applied for an export
license from the US treasury.
Now, of course, what should have happened was the treasury said “actually sorry, but
no—that coin is illegal to own and the one you have was clearly stolen from US in 1933,
and we need it back,” but what they actually said was, “uh… sure.”
That “uh, sure” was the result of a mistake by an unnamed treasury official, whose identity
we can only guess at, and as a result, the coin made its way to Egypt.
The government wanted it back, but in 1944, a few countries were involved in a bit of
a tussle, and Egypt was sort of in the middle of it, and the US figured then probably wasn’t
the time to try to get their coin back.
In 1952, King Farouk was overthrown in a coup for silly things like corruption, and the
coin was supposed to be returned to America, but then, when the world needed it most, it
vanished.
It didn’t resurface until 1996, when its holder, a British coin dealer named Stephen
Fenton, was tricked into selling it as part of a string operation by the Secret Service.
Fenton was arrested, but after a long court battle, the US government and Fenton agreed
to sell the coin at Sotheby’s and split the profits—profits which totaled $7.59
million, when the coin was sold to an anonymous buyer who is now the proud owner of the most
expensive $20 in the world.
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