PCGS - Thursday, October 5, 1967, was a really terrific day for this author. I was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, and my beloved Boston Red Sox had just played Game 2 of baseball's 1967 World Series. The Sox pitching ace, Jim Lonborg, shut out the St. Louis Cardinals 5-0, and my boyhood hero, Carl Yastrzemski, hit two home runs to win the game and tie the Series at one game each.
The next morning, I went looking for the story in The Boston Globe about the Red Sox win. The Sox heroics were certainly there, but there was also another story that caught my eye. I had been collecting coins for several years already, and my brother was attending coin shows as a dealer, so this article really piqued my interest.
About 1,500 miles south of me in Miami, Florida, five young men had driven to the affluent neighborhood of Coconut Grove to rob someone. The area was filled with mansions, estates, and palatial summer homes. Inside these mansions must be millionaires, and millionaires must have cash! No one seems to know why the crooks stopped at one particular, massive 42-room mansion when so many other similar estates were nearby. The grandiose home was situated at 3500 St. Gaudens Road, an address well suited for those with an affinity for numismatics but one that likely held no meaning for these robbers.
The five young men were armed and looking for cash and jewelry, but they had no idea that they were about to acquire the rare coin collection of a lifetime. They also didn't realize how much trouble these coins would cause them. Just before midnight, they stopped the car, donned their ski masks, and proceeded to break into this particular residence.
However, this was no ordinary mansion. It was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Willis H. du Pont, former head of General Motors and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the chemical giant. Willis was the youngest of 10 children and had left the family's homeland of Delaware for the relaxing sunshine of Florida. He had married a Spanish model, Miren de Amezola de Balboa, and they had two children, Victor, age four at the time of the robbery, and his baby brother Lammot, then just one.
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Posted 07/17/2020 11:19 am
