1933 Double Eagle Special

hmmm good question. If Gold was a million dollars a ounce and I had melted down what I thought was all the coins I owned years before and then come to find out the police officers found my coin in someone elses possession and they did research and found I was the last recorded owner I think I would fight like heck to get an extra million even if I had already had all the metal I was supposed to have, as they gave up possession to me of their ounce of gold but I never actually knowingly give up possession of mine. I guess I am just greedy like that...lol as we all know the Govt. is as well as long as your not a third world country wanting to borrow money they know you won't be able to pay back, but definitely don't want to turn this into a political discussion so I will end that part of the discussion with that


I think Switt had a personal relationship with the cashier (not romantic) and the cashier knew all he cared about was making money and not the legality of how he did it as I have heard he had made other not so moral decisions before this. If I were the cashier (which is the only one who supposedly had access to the coins as they were locked in his cabinet) I would not want to do business like this with anyone else I didn't trust 100% so Switt may have been the only one he dealt with especially if he was smart which is seems he was no slouch in the mental department as most would have just taken them out and sold them without replacing with a different date. Most thieves or shady characters usually only worry about how much they can make and an extra 20 bucks is an extra 20 bucks. But Switt may have been the one coaching him on this telling him if he did it this way there would be no way he could get caught


I apologize for commenting so many times in this one thread but it is one topic I have read everything I have found about the subject and as I stated earlier it is a topic I have struggled within myself about between the collector in me and morality of the subject

I think the main thing that bothers me so much from a collectors point of view is there is other series of coins out there that were never released and they seem to be ignoring them, but yet they are making a point to go after each and every one of these that comes to light. I know there are other circumstances behind how some of the others got out into the public but they were still asked to be returned and weren't. I know everyone of us have put ourselves in the Switt families position and said "what if", or dream of going through that eccentric family members belongings and find a stash of valuable items that no one knew they had. This situation makes you think if that did happen and you found a Picasso in the attic then found out it was taken from a museum 80 years before and a very good forgery put in its place and everyone had been looking for it since it was noticed the one on display was fake. The days,weeks,months,years before you knew this you spent dreaming of how it was going to change your lives of you and your loved ones and just about had every penny you were going to make from the sale accounted for, then find all this out and realize you will still have to go into that crappy job that you hate waking up to go into for the rest of your life. Its a tough situation to be in and to even think about but just as it is with this case of the coins it would have to be returned to the rightful owner with the family not entitled to anything, not even a finders fee. It would be just like buying stolen property of every day items, you may or may not know its stolen and it doesn't matter how much you paid nor how much its worth the police will confiscate it and give it to the rightful owner it was stolen for and the person that was in possession of the items can go to jail for having possession of the stolen property even if they didn't know it was stolen. My ex-Wife's nephew and father and girlfriend is sitting in jail right now for this very thing. They claim they didn't know but they had allot of items in their house that were stolen but I don't know the facts, just what has been told to me. I really think there is more to the story that has been told but I really do not know

OK so I will take back what I said, I didn't know they were the descendents of the thief. But what I think should happen is the government should seize them and offer them up for auction, allowing them to be legal in the future, and use the auction money for something good that the country needs.

It reminds me of the online poker ban... they want to get rid of it but they're ignoring how much good could come out of regulating it.

What did happen to these 10 coins?




That's kind of the point I was trying to make on the first page, I agree. I'm fine with them preventing the thief's family from benefiting because that would be really wrong, but I think there is just no good reason to destroy them.

I think the reason behind them not going after the others is that they gave them out to certain people and asked them to return them (at least I know that is the case of the Aluminum Cent) or they accidentally got released by mistake. With the 1933 Double Eagles they knew none got out and they had every one of them locked up in a cabinet, so the only way any of those could have gotten out was someone unlocking the cabinet and stealing them. no matter if they replaced them or not with another coin this certain date wasn't supposed to exist after they decided to melt all of the ones in the cabinet down. At least that is how I understand the situation behind it, but they could have very easily done the same thing with the others in my opinion but decided not to.


I don't know where they are at now but I know not long after they were confiscated they displayed them at coin shows to show them to everyone. I was actually at the Charlotte Coin and Money show probably about 8 or so years ago and they had them on display and it was a beautiful sight to see all those coins that wasn't supposed to exist in one place all together

there was 4 guards around them at all time. you can see the display of the coins on this webpage (this was in Denver but it was the same display on Charlotte) http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistor...age1106c.htm if you scroll down to the bottom you can see all 10 out of the case together. The story they are telling is a little out dated as this was done way before the first court case I believe but it is the only pictures I could find online of the display.

The link on page 2 of this thread at the top was a good story, I enjoyed reading that. Thanks.

Knowing all the information now, or both sides of the story, I still think the government should work up some kind of a compromise. I'm not saying to give that family a lot but give them something to make this problem go away and allow it to turn into something good for everybody already. That's the part that kills me - they're ignoring the very real benefits of working it out, I mean for christ's sake they're worth 75 million dollars... think of the good $75M could do. At the time they were allegedly stolen they were worth about $3000 combined (in present day dollars)... that's it... all this... for $3000 dollars in gold coins. I just don't get it, man have they really lost sight of what matters. And to top it all off, when it comes to other coins removed from the Mint, they don't care at all?!?

It is beyond asinine if you ask me.

Some of it just HAS to be protecting the one that sold for 7.5 million. If 10 more came out it would lose value for sure but all those coins would still be million dollar coins or more imo

Also thanks for all your comments about this Bryan, very informative.