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Pillar of the Community
United States
509 Posts |
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Neither do I, but if some dirtbag stole my car(or whatever) & died before I got it back that doesn't mean it suddenly becomes the heirs property Hey I share that sentiment completely. Actually we're not talking about theft at all. Not yet. Theft has not been shown and from the looks of it I don't think anyone here is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least until a legal determination has been made. Basically, the government's position is "it must have been theft" since they cannot account for Switt being in possession of the coins in any other way. From all I've read about the case, the judge is going to have to render a legal/moral decision based on assumptions. Had the government been able to actually prove theft, I believe it would have done so. Lawyers for Langbord argue that in the 1930s, it was common and even permissible for employees of the mint to replace old coins with new ones of equal value. The government must prove the coins were stolen. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
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The government must prove the coins were stolen. I haven't seen the stenographers record of the trial. All I have to go by is what I read in online articles. Things I have read in the past from what I consider reasonably reliable sources make me think that the coins were obtained by the deceased in an unlawful manner. According to the news article posted at the start of this thread a jury that heard all the evidence & arguments thinks the same: Quote:
A jury has decided that a set of rare gold coins found in a bank deposit box rightfully belongs to the U.S. government. Edited by trdhrdr007
07/21/2011 6:05 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
I have said this with every conversation about these coins, This is the only decision that could have ever took place to be fair. The only way the one was able to become legal tender is because King Farouk went through the red tape to export the one he owned and they allowed it. He exported it legally and when they allowed it they made it legal for him to own (no matter what was going on at the time between the countries) it was documented they allowed him to take it home and they knew what it was, even though this one was taken like the rest when they allowed this they gave up ownership. They could have told him NO and made him give it back right then but they didn't. As a collector of coins and the beauty they hold I don't like this decision but as what I feel is right I don't feel this should have went any other way Quote:
Actually we're not talking about theft at all. Not yet. Theft has not been shown and from the looks of it I don't think anyone here is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt Actually it was definitely theft, no one is saying swift stole them but the employee definitely did, and just because you buy stolen property it doesn't mean its yours either, it still belongs to the rightful owner it was stolen from. There is no other way they could have left the mint except for being stolen out of the locked locker they were placed in to hold. Just because they were replaced with different dates doesn't mean anything either because those coins were never supposed to be taken out of the locker to leave the mint. Like I said above the one coin was legalizes was transferred ownership from the legal owners to the new one (King Farouk) at the time they allowed him to export it |
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Valued Member
United States
450 Posts |
My concern with all of this is that there have been plenty of other shananagans
at the U.S. Mint and the goverment has looked the other way.
I mean why don't they confiscate the 1913 V nicks ?
They were never authorized.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
509 Posts |
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Bryan1315 Quote:
Actually it was definitely theft Well Bryan I'm impressed that you alone have been able to make that determination with such certainty. I'm quite astonished and am wondering on just what hard information you might possess that enabled you to do that. Perhaps you might want to consider sharing it with the presiding judge to assist in his final determination. From my perspective it appears it's just a presumption of guilt much as the government's position of "how else could he have gotten them". Did you happen to read the defense's statement I posted above? "Lawyers for Langbord argue that in the 1930s, it was common and even permissible for employees of the mint to replace old coins with new ones of equal value". Has that contention been disproven or you've just decided to dismiss it as balderdash? The presumption of innocence until proven guilty seems to be working in reverse here. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
when they put a bag of coins in a locked case (locker) to not be removed until they are told to be removed and they get removed and sold/traded/given away wgat ever before they were ever supposed to be removed what category would you put that in? It is like given your most trusted family member the combination to your safe and tell him he is not to open it until you are dead only to find out he had been opening it and removing your key date coins and replacing them with common dates of the same denomination in hopes no one would ever know the difference. Did this family member commit theft? in my opinion he did, just because he had the combination (or key) didn't give him the right to replace one coin with another just because he happened to be trusted with the key and had access to do so. I am not going to keep debating this same argument each and every time one of these topics come up so this is my last post on it but will finish off with saying this. if the "owner" of any item never relinquished ownership of that particular item it is still their property. The only way this could have been legally sold/traded/given away is if the Govt told the mint employee that he could open the locker and start selling the coins, which never happened.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
According to this legal article, it is plainly obvious that the coins never made it out of the Mint legally. The last shipment of gold coins left the Philadelphia Mint on March 6, 1933. No 1933 Double Eagles were in that $12.25 million shipment; none had yet been minted. But despite the gold embargo, engraving work at the Mint continued. Ten days after the last gold shipment, workers at the Philadelphia Mint began striking 1933 Double Eagles. In three series of mintings between March 15 and May 19, a total of 445,500 1933 Double Eagles were struck.
Most of them never left the Philadelphia Mint. All but 466 coins were sealed into a Mint vault in June 1933. The others were sent out, some to Washington, D.C., and some to New York, for standard testing. Twenty-nine coins were destroyed in the testing. The rest were returned to the Philadelphia Mint, where they were locked into a cashier's safe that could only be opened with two keys held by the Mint cashier. Two coins were eventually sent to the Smithsonian to be added to the museum's complete collection of American coins. All of the other existing 1933 Double Eagles -- the 445,034 coins held in the Mint vault and the 435 in the cashier's vault -- were, according to the records of the Philadelphia Mint, melted down between February 6 and March 18, 1937.
But on February 15, 1937, a Philadelphia jeweler named Israel Switt sold a 1933 Double Eagle to Philadelphia coin dealer James MacAllister.The Mint Cashier at the time, George McCann, was eventually convicted of theft for stealing silver from the Mint. Israel Switt was arrested in 1934 for illegal possession of a large quantity of gold coins as he tried to board a train in Philadelphia- his suitcase was suspiciously heavy, imagine that. He also was known in numismatic circles as a "gold coin bootlegger". These are two seedy characters and they were far from innocent, they knew exactly what they were doing by illegally exchanging the 1933s. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
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By law, stolen property is just that If other $20 were swapped (like 1804 dollars being swapped for itewms the mint needed in their collection), then the coins are not stolen. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3076 Posts |
Well put, this info of this whole ordeal has well been known since 1933.. the basic facts are...there was a gold embargo yet they the mint had the right to mint the series, as the embargo was still not official, The mint with , possibly the last allowed production allowed before the gold embargo would stop all further production allowed, was poised to continue the minting of the 1933 doubled eagles in case the ban would not effect there current production tally's..
However the ban did take place so all 1933 produced coins were not to be deemed "LEAGEL TENDER" or authorized minted coins and were assumed ALL to be re-melted as they were now considered not an authorized production coin.....Now this guy is in the middle of all of this knowing...the ban could eliminate OR cease the numbers already minted...What better place to be....with your hands in there pockets to TRADE old lamps for new (LOL) if they cease all production you have a claim of true minted USA gold...IF they deny the production you still have your hands on USA produced coins from the mint that are not considered leagle tender.....yet you have these one of a kind coins, One of the techicalities could be.. as they allowed the KING to have one Authorized exception, an accepted USA MINTED coin... this could allow the exchange idea mentioned possibly to hold true....as it happened before the cease fire on the coin presses....while its possible that there could be a loop hole...I find it rediculous that people can be in such circumstances to PROFIT in such large amounts by a loop hole... I hope the next descision goes to the gov't
and denies the scam and hidden coins until the law favors to holder.....It reminds me of all of the stolen treasures of EUROPE during WW2 now should they all belong to happens to hold them now? or should they be returned to there rightful owners ? Not much of a brain strain there..
Its not correct...for stolen items to be "Washed" over as time goes by, as a way of saying...they did not belong or was stolen from another... if 7 years was the statute of limitations....Look at how they have ROBBED US ALL....
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1801 Posts |
Switt was a liar, no doubt about that. He lied repeatedly to the investigators back in 1944 when the government first became aware that 1933 Double Eagles had entered the rare coin market. At first he said one thing then another and then after the 5 known coins were all traced back to him he denied he had any more (I guess he forgot about the 5 more he had in the safe deposit box...oh wait, that safe deposit box where they were found was set up after his death so I guess he didn't know about them, nor did his heirs who certainly didn't declare them as part of his estate when he died.)If you are interested in this coin I suggest you read "Illegal Tender" by David Tripp which researches the entire investigation into the 1933's that were tracked down and confiscated and the one that got away because an export license was signed for it back in Feb 1944 by a treasury underling after her brief inquiry at the Smithsonian as to whether the coin met the current export requirement of being of numismatic value. The book also tracks the Farouk coin to the arrest in 1996 of an English coin dealer and US dealer Jay Parrino when they tried to sell the coin in New York for 1.5 million, and through the subsequent trial that ended with the coin be sold at auction and the proceeds being split between the English Dealer and the US government.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1704 Posts |
Now that the jury has decided that the coins are the sole property of the U. S. Government I would like to see that one piece be loaned, not donated or ownership transferred, to the ANA for their collection and if the Smithsonian Museum does not have the two originally given them then they should get two pieces and the rest should be melted under tight supervision. Ed ANA LM-3175 |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
I know I know I can't stay away no matter how many times I say I am going to. As a collector I hate to see or even think about any classic coin like this being melted down but it is at the owners discretion what they do with the coins once they are returned to their rightful owners. We all know they will in no way ever make another one "legal tender" like they did the Farouk coin because the only reason they did with that specific coin was because of the export loop hole it went through. I would love to see these donated for further generations to admire but I sure hope they do a better job of the display than they had them in at the Charlotte ANA coin show, don't remember the year they were on display but the way they displayed them was not very good and was almost impossible to take a picture of. But I am sure they will probably be melted down like was supposed to be their fate in 1933 I really do find it hard to believe that anyone on this forum could see these coins as anything but stolen property because of all the smart people we have on here. Some of the comments I have heard are some you would expect to hear from some anti-government whack jobs not someone that has the brains I have seen exhibited on this forum. I think its just the collector inside them that would love to think if they found a 1933 St Gaudens in grams sock drawer when she passed that they would be able to keep it and retire. The collector in them is clouding their judgment just as the anti-government whack jobs hatred of authority (usually any authority) clouds their judgment to where they would argue with a fence post if it was painted red/white/blue Quote:
If other $20 were swapped (like 1804 dollars being swapped for items the mint needed in their collection), then the coins are not stolen. I am glad you feel this way, send me a list of all your key date coins and denominations and I will pay you a visit and swap out all of you key dates with my common date of the same series and denomination and we will both be happy. You because you still have the same amount of coins you had when I arrived and me because I still have the same amount I came with and also don't have to worry about getting arrested since you would not think of the ones in my pocket when I left as yours or stolen property. But if you did call the cops you would be able to keep my coins plus get yours back even if I argued I paid for them with those coins because it is illegal to purchase stolen property and when that stolen property is confiscated you do not get the money back you paid for the stolen item |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
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I am glad you feel this way, send me a list of all your key date coins and denominations and I will pay you a visit and swap out all of you key dates with my common date of the same series and denomination and we will both be happy. The 1933 $20 was by no stretch of the imagination anything but a common coin. The ones swapped were prolly scarcer. It was the gubmint that made the 33 rare. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
well the reason they took them out is because they KNEW there was a very very good chance (I'm guessing at least a 98% chance) because the embargo was no secret and they KNEW if it went through those they were trading for were going to be very very rare as they are because the embargo would not allow ANYONE ELSE to purchase any unless they got them from MR Swift himself. So since it was no secret they probably weren't ever going to be released for sale to collectors or anyone else they knew the ones traded for them were never going to be as rare as the (lets just throw a number out here) 20 he had swapped for illegally with the Mint employee. It wasn't like Enron stock where just a few high ups knew what was getting ready to happen so they could get out while they were ahead, it was common knowledge this was getting ready to happen so that scenario that the ones swapped (which were probably more bullion pieces than collector coins) doesn't make sense either
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
argument: the 33s were stolen property, and the entity they were stolen from has the right to get them back.
counter: a representative of the entity traded them even up for other gold, which was the only interest the gubmint had in them. Therefore they were not stolen, just seller's remorse.
2: the gubmint knew where they were all along. if they were sdtolen, the statute of limitations ran out long ago.
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Replies: 40 / Views: 4,487 |
First Page
Posted 07/21/2011 6:04 pm
