Posted 09/27/2005 12:40 pm
Sorry Mike-here it is: Anyone else find that just in the past couple of months, a much larger number of online newspapers require registration, or have changed what they need for registration. NYTimes, which has alsways been free, now charges for times select. WSJ was the only "biggie" which charged for their online edition- and got away with it as so many could pay those fees out of expense accounts at work...
Posted on Sun, Aug. 28, 2005
A bit of light is shined on the gold-coin mystery
By L. Stuart Ditzen
Inquirer Staff Writer
In the spring of 1944, Israel "Izzy" Switt, a wily and unkempt Philadelphia jeweler, was caught in a dilemma: He possessed a fabulously valuable treasure, but he couldn't sell it.
Switt had secretly obtained a cache of $20 gold coins, known as 1933 "double eagles," from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia just before the entire minting of the coins - 445,500 in all - was melted into bullion as the United States went off the gold standard.
The surviving, beautifully crafted, one-ounce gold pieces, which never were put into use as currency, eventually would become the rarest and most valuable coins in the world.
Switt was the only person known to have acquired any of the coins shortly before the meltdown in 1937 - and he reputedly had 25.
On March 30, 1944, two Secret Service agents visited Switt at his cluttered antiques-jewelry store on South Eighth Street. They demanded to know how Switt had obtained nine double eagles that had been traced back to him from other coin dealers. Those nine had been confiscated and were eventually melted down.
Facing the threat of prosecution, Switt clammed up.
He also quit selling double eagles.
But he kept at least 10 and sat on them until the day he died, in 1990 at age 95, and as their value soared to unimaginable heights.
A year ago, Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, found the 10 coins and turned them over to the Mint to determine their authenticity.
The Mint confiscated them.
"These double eagles were never lawfully issued, but instead were taken from the United States Mint at Philadelphia in an unlawful manner more than 70 years ago," acting Mint director David Lebryk said earlier this month in announcing the recovery of the coins.
A legal battle now is taking shape between Switt's heirs and the U.S. government over who is rightful owner of the priceless coins.
Langbord declined this week to discuss the coins or their discovery.
Barry H. Berke, a New York lawyer representing Langbord and her son, said he intended to take legal action to re-recover the coins for his clients.
The only double eagle ever legally sold was auctioned at Sotheby's/Stack's in 2002 for $7.59 million. That remains the highest price ever paid for a coin.
Harry J. Forman, a retired coin dealer who knew Switt, said Friday that 10 double eagles now could be worth as much as $100 million.
The coins are so intensely coveted by collectors, Forman said, "I think there are over 10 guys with $10 million who would fight for these coins."
The Switt coins are being held at Fort Knox, Ky. Mint officials said they did not intend to melt them, and eventually might put them on exhibit.
Switt was never charged with any crime relating to his acquisition of the coins.
Berke, the lawyer, said that the government had no proof Switt acquired the coins illegally and that, thus, his heirs retained a legal right to them.
The story of the lost double eagles, dormant for more than 60 years, now is a topic of intense discussion around the country among coin dealers and collectors.
"This has just absolutely blindsided everyone in the coin business," said David Tripp, author of a book about the Secret Service investigation to recover the fabled coins. "It's absolutely astonishing."
After his encounter with the Secret Service agents in 1944, Switt rarely spoke about the coins.
But Forman, the retired coin dealer who was friendly with Switt, said Switt talked to him - a bit - about the coins years ago, when the two men ate lunch together at a Jewelers' Row restaurant.
Forman said Switt told him he acquired an unspecified number of 1933 coins through a Mint employee by trading in some similar gold coins minted in 1931.
In about 1975, Forman said, Switt raised the possibility with him of selling a double eagle.
"He said if I had a customer out of the country, he might know where to get one" of the coins, Forman said. "I said I wasn't interested because they were radioactive... . It would have been subject to confiscation."
Tripp, author of Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle, said this week that his research showed that Switt obtained the coins from the chief cashier at the Mint, a man who later was prosecuted for an unrelated embezzlement.
By 1944, the statute of limitations on any illegal dealings going back to 1937 had lapsed.
In his book, Tripp quotes a Philadelphia coin dealer named James Macallister as stating in an interview with Secret Service agents in 1944 that Switt told him he had acquired 25 double eagles and sold 14.
With 10 more coins now found, one remains unaccounted for - assuming that the numbers Macallister recited to authorities were accurate.
Tripp said he had no idea that Switt had held on to as many as 10 double eagles.
And where did he hide them?
"If the store has been there in the same place for a long time, it's very possible that the coins were in the vault the whole time," said Armen R. Vartian, counsel for the Professional Numismatists Guild, an organization of coin dealers and experts. "My impression is that the coins were in the original Mint wrapper."
Forman, the coin dealer and Switt friend, agreed that the coins were hidden in the shop.
"I'm sure they were in the building, no question," he said. "It's a building loaded with antiques. Unbelievable stuff."
Forman wondered why the coins, wherever they were found, had escaped notice for so long.
By my acccounting that means 6 ares till out there somewhere-including 5 that Switt may have sold to others but that weren't confiscated and melted with the other 9 referred to above.
Don
Posted on Sun, Aug. 28, 2005
A bit of light is shined on the gold-coin mystery
By L. Stuart Ditzen
Inquirer Staff Writer
In the spring of 1944, Israel "Izzy" Switt, a wily and unkempt Philadelphia jeweler, was caught in a dilemma: He possessed a fabulously valuable treasure, but he couldn't sell it.
Switt had secretly obtained a cache of $20 gold coins, known as 1933 "double eagles," from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia just before the entire minting of the coins - 445,500 in all - was melted into bullion as the United States went off the gold standard.
The surviving, beautifully crafted, one-ounce gold pieces, which never were put into use as currency, eventually would become the rarest and most valuable coins in the world.
Switt was the only person known to have acquired any of the coins shortly before the meltdown in 1937 - and he reputedly had 25.
On March 30, 1944, two Secret Service agents visited Switt at his cluttered antiques-jewelry store on South Eighth Street. They demanded to know how Switt had obtained nine double eagles that had been traced back to him from other coin dealers. Those nine had been confiscated and were eventually melted down.
Facing the threat of prosecution, Switt clammed up.
He also quit selling double eagles.
But he kept at least 10 and sat on them until the day he died, in 1990 at age 95, and as their value soared to unimaginable heights.
A year ago, Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, found the 10 coins and turned them over to the Mint to determine their authenticity.
The Mint confiscated them.
"These double eagles were never lawfully issued, but instead were taken from the United States Mint at Philadelphia in an unlawful manner more than 70 years ago," acting Mint director David Lebryk said earlier this month in announcing the recovery of the coins.
A legal battle now is taking shape between Switt's heirs and the U.S. government over who is rightful owner of the priceless coins.
Langbord declined this week to discuss the coins or their discovery.
Barry H. Berke, a New York lawyer representing Langbord and her son, said he intended to take legal action to re-recover the coins for his clients.
The only double eagle ever legally sold was auctioned at Sotheby's/Stack's in 2002 for $7.59 million. That remains the highest price ever paid for a coin.
Harry J. Forman, a retired coin dealer who knew Switt, said Friday that 10 double eagles now could be worth as much as $100 million.
The coins are so intensely coveted by collectors, Forman said, "I think there are over 10 guys with $10 million who would fight for these coins."
The Switt coins are being held at Fort Knox, Ky. Mint officials said they did not intend to melt them, and eventually might put them on exhibit.
Switt was never charged with any crime relating to his acquisition of the coins.
Berke, the lawyer, said that the government had no proof Switt acquired the coins illegally and that, thus, his heirs retained a legal right to them.
The story of the lost double eagles, dormant for more than 60 years, now is a topic of intense discussion around the country among coin dealers and collectors.
"This has just absolutely blindsided everyone in the coin business," said David Tripp, author of a book about the Secret Service investigation to recover the fabled coins. "It's absolutely astonishing."
After his encounter with the Secret Service agents in 1944, Switt rarely spoke about the coins.
But Forman, the retired coin dealer who was friendly with Switt, said Switt talked to him - a bit - about the coins years ago, when the two men ate lunch together at a Jewelers' Row restaurant.
Forman said Switt told him he acquired an unspecified number of 1933 coins through a Mint employee by trading in some similar gold coins minted in 1931.
In about 1975, Forman said, Switt raised the possibility with him of selling a double eagle.
"He said if I had a customer out of the country, he might know where to get one" of the coins, Forman said. "I said I wasn't interested because they were radioactive... . It would have been subject to confiscation."
Tripp, author of Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle, said this week that his research showed that Switt obtained the coins from the chief cashier at the Mint, a man who later was prosecuted for an unrelated embezzlement.
By 1944, the statute of limitations on any illegal dealings going back to 1937 had lapsed.
In his book, Tripp quotes a Philadelphia coin dealer named James Macallister as stating in an interview with Secret Service agents in 1944 that Switt told him he had acquired 25 double eagles and sold 14.
With 10 more coins now found, one remains unaccounted for - assuming that the numbers Macallister recited to authorities were accurate.
Tripp said he had no idea that Switt had held on to as many as 10 double eagles.
And where did he hide them?
"If the store has been there in the same place for a long time, it's very possible that the coins were in the vault the whole time," said Armen R. Vartian, counsel for the Professional Numismatists Guild, an organization of coin dealers and experts. "My impression is that the coins were in the original Mint wrapper."
Forman, the coin dealer and Switt friend, agreed that the coins were hidden in the shop.
"I'm sure they were in the building, no question," he said. "It's a building loaded with antiques. Unbelievable stuff."
Forman wondered why the coins, wherever they were found, had escaped notice for so long.
By my acccounting that means 6 ares till out there somewhere-including 5 that Switt may have sold to others but that weren't confiscated and melted with the other 9 referred to above.
Don
