[This installment will
conclude my series “1933 Double Eagle: The World’s Most Valuable Coin.” We pick up the story still in the 21st
century’s second decade and bring it up to the beginning of the third decade,
the last coverage I could find. As I
think you’ll find, though, the fabulous gold piece has enough mojo for many more
chapters; just as Dashiell Hammett’s black bird went on to a mysterious future
after the book and the movie ended, I imagine the 1933 Double Eagle will have a
long, if hidden life.
[As usual, I suggest that readers return to June 5 and 8 to read Parts 1 and 2 of this series before moving on to Part 3 below. The story begins there and I’ve included many details referred to here more completely in the earlier installments.]
“FAMILY LOSES
COINS WORTH MILLIONS IN DISPUTE WITH U.S.”
by Peter Loftus
[This follow-up report by Peter Loftus on the Langbord family’s claim of ownership of 10 Double Eagles ran in the Wall Street Journal of 20 July 2011 (Sec. A [news], on page 7, labeled “U.S. News.”). It was posted on the WSJ website on 21 July.
[(A word about the digital posting of this and the following Wall Street Journal article: the links provided above and below lead to a site that’s only accessible to subscribers. I tried to access the online articles through the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive, but I was unsuccessful.
[(Readers who aren’t WSJ subscribers can get both a digital version and a PDF of the articles through Proquest, which is available on many library databases. Many libraries also provide a WSJ database as well. Note that many library databases are accessible from home if you have a library card.)]
PHILADELPHIA—A jury concluded that the U.S. Mint may keep 10 rare gold coins it confiscated from the heirs of a Depression-era coin dealer who obtained them under mysterious circumstances more than 70 years ago.
The jury said Wednesday that the government had proven its case that the coins—known as 1933 Double Eagles and worth millions of dollars—should be forfeited by the family.
During the 10-day civil trial in federal court, the government argued the late Philadelphia coin dealer, Israel Switt [1895-1990], obtained the Double Eagles illegally in the 1930s in cooperation with a cashier at the Philadelphia arm of the Mint.
His daughter and two grandsons—Joan [b. 1930], Roy [b. ca. 1952] and David [1955-2023] Langbord—argued there was no evidence the coins were stolen, and that they should get them back.
“We get to keep them,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney [for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania] Jacqueline Romero [b. 1970/71] after the verdict. “This was government property that was stolen.”
The case remains subject to further proceedings in which a federal judge may decide the ultimate ownership of the coins.
Joan Langbord found the 10 coins in a family safe-deposit box in 2003 [nb: this assertion will be disputed] and turned them over to the Mint to be authenticated. The Mint confirmed the coins were real, but then kept what it said was U.S. property.
The jury found the government was correct in seizing the coins because they were products of a crime—either stolen or having left the Mint illegally and were concealed.
Barry Berke, an attorney for the Langbords, declined to comment. Roy and David Langbord both declined to comment; Joan Langbord couldn’t immediately be reached.
The coins in question, which had a face value of $20 apiece, were minted in 1933. But they were part of a batch that wasn’t supposed to circulate because President Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945] ordered the Mint to stop releasing most forms of gold as part of his efforts to combat the Great Depression [1929-39].
But some coins got out, including one that sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2002 for $7.6 million [see Parts 1 and 2].
The government said historical records showed no 1933 Double Eagles were supposed to be authorized for release to the public.
The family argued that a “window of opportunity” in the days after FDR took office made it unclear whether coins should go out[, and so it was possible the Mint cashier legitimately exchanged the ’33 Double Eagles for older coins brought in by members of the public. – nb: these words are not in the print edition].
[Peter Loftus is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Philadelphia, covering the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, among other subjects. Before joining the Journal in 2013, he was a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires since 1997. He previously worked as a courthouse reporter at the Reporter newspaper in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Loftus graduated from Indiana’s University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in English and history.]
* *
* *
“RARE GOLD COINS
BELONG TO MINT, JUDGE DECIDES”
by Peter Loftus
[What turned out to be the last word on the Langbord’s claim to their stash of Double Eagles (there’s a coda appended below, but it doesn’t change the last court’s decision) was reported in the Wall Street Journal on 6 September 2012 (Sec. A [news], on page 3, labeled “U.S. News.”). It was posted on the WSJ website on 9 September (see note above concerning this link).]
PHILADELPHIA—A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Mint may keep 10 rare gold coins seized from the heirs of a Philadelphia coin dealer who obtained them decades ago under uncertain circumstances.
U.S. District Judge [of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania] Legrome D. Davis [b. 1952] said in an Aug. 29 opinion that the 1933 “Double Eagle” coins—which have a face value of $20 apiece but are now worth millions of dollars—”remain the property of the United States” and “were not lawfully removed” from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.
The ruling could clear the way for the Mint to decide where to store or possibly display the coins, which have been kept at the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Ky., since being confiscated several years ago.
The Mint is assessing the best way to securely exhibit the coins and expects to announce plans in the near future, a spokesman said.
The ruling is another setback for Joan Switt Langbord and her two sons, Roy and David Langbord, who had claimed ownership of the coins after Ms. Langbord said she discovered them in a family safe-deposit box in 2003.
The family said the coins were left behind by Ms. Langbord’s late father, Israel Switt, a coin dealer and operator of a jewelry and antique shop. The government disputed the family’s ownership and confiscated the coins.
The disputed coins are among the rarest and most valuable in the world. In coin vernacular, which dubs a $10 coin an “Eagle,” they were known as Double Eagles. They feature a soaring eagle and liberty figure resembling a Greek goddess etched on opposite sides, and were designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens [1848-1907] in the early 1900s at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919], who wanted American coins to be more beautiful. More than 445,000 Double Eagles were minted in 1933, but they weren’t supposed to be circulated because then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt banned the payout of gold coins to combat a financial crisis.
Most of the 1933 Double Eagles were melted into gold bars, but some escaped destruction and have surfaced over the years. One sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2002 for $7.6 million.
The Justice Department argued that a cashier at the Philadelphia Mint in the 1930s was the likely source of coins that left the Mint illicitly, and they somehow got into the hands of Mr. Switt, who died in 1990. In the 1940s, the Secret Service hunted down several stray Double Eagles and concluded that Mr. Switt had sold them, according to court documents.
The Langbords said the government had no proof the coins were obtained illegally. Their attorney argued there was a legal window of opportunity in 1933 during which some coins may have legitimately left the Mint.
Following a civil trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, a jury concluded in July 2011 the U.S. proved its case that the coins should be forfeited by the Langbord family. However, final resolution of the case has remained on hold while the judge weighed legal motions filed by both sides.
The family had asked the judge to overturn the verdict, saying there was insufficient evidence the coins were stolen or embezzled. The government asked for a judgment that the coins weren’t lawfully removed from the Mint.
Judge Davis, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush [b. 1946; 43rd President of the United States: 2001-09], sided with the government, writing in a 54-page memorandum accompanying his Aug. 29 opinion: “Given the evidence, a reasonable jury could find that the ‘33 Double Eagles were knowingly stolen or embezzled from the Mint.” The government is “the true owner of the stolen coins [Langbord v. USA, Declaratory Judgment, 29 August 2012].”
“We are pleased with Judge Davis’s well-reasoned and thoughtful opinion,” Zane David Memeger [b. 1964], U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.
The Langbord family plans to appeal the decision, their attorney said. “This is a case that raises many novel legal questions including the limits on the government’s power to confiscate property,” said the lawyer, Barry H. Berke.
[The Langbords disputed Judge Davis’s findings and in November 2013 appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. They argued their case on multiple levels, and in April 2015, a three-judge panel ordered the Government to return the coins to the family of Israel Switt.
[The Government, however, petitioned the Appeals Court for a rehearing in front of all 13 of the Appellate Court judges. This request, though rare, was granted. The full Court of Appeals reversed the earlier panel’s decision.
[Although the decision of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to uphold the Government’s long-held position of ownership definitively, on 28 October 2016, the Langbord family appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. On 17 April 2017, SCOTUS decided not to take the Langbord appeal.
[After 11 years, finality came to the litigation concerning the 1933 Double Eagles, and the Government’s long-held claims of ownership were confirmed.
[The 10 Langbord coins are currently being held at Fort Knox by the U.S. Mint and are treated as “heritage assets.” The Mint has stated that the coins won’t be melted and are being preserved. They may be used for educational purposes and public exhibits in the future.
[(“Heritage assets” refer to the coins’ significance beyond their monetary value. They’re items that hold historical, artistic, scientific, or cultural significance and are maintained for their contribution to knowledge and culture.)
[But that wasn’t the end of the story . . . .]
* *
* *
“A COIN SO RARE IT
SHOULDN’T EXIST IS OUT OF THE VAULT”
by James Barron
[James Barron’s report on the return of the 1933 Double Eagle to public display was published in the New York Times on 13 August 2013 (Sec. A [news]) in a column called “City Room” on a page labeled “New York.” It was also posted on the Times website as “A Coin Is Historic, Priceless and No Longer in a Vault” on 12 August.]
For 10 months, the world’s most valuable coin sat wrapped in plastic on a folding chair in a little cagelike compartment behind a bright blue door at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was only a step or two away from billions of dollars’ worth of neatly stacked bars of gold bullion.
On Monday, a man in a dark suit stashed the coin in his briefcase and coolly walked out of the Fed’s heavily guarded limestone-and-sandstone building, a couple of blocks from the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. He nodded politely to the guards on the front steps of the Fed. They did not stop him.
The man with the briefcase, David N. Redden [1949-2024], an auction-house executive [Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s], was not pulling off a heist. He was taking the coin on a 6.7-mile ride to the New-York Historical Society on Central Park West.
“It’s history,” Louise Mirrer [b. ca. 1952], the president of the historical society, said of the coin after Mr. Redden had turned it over to curators who fitted it into a display case. “We have lots of priceless objects, but it’s always exciting to have the most valuable anything.”
The coin is valuable — Mr. Redden auctioned it at Sotheby’s for $7,590,020 in 2002 [see Part 1], at the time the highest price any coin has ever sold for — because it should not exist. That is why it has inspired four books, a documentary for the Smithsonian Channel and an episode of the cable-television drama “The Closer.”
[Four books, both fiction and nonfiction (there are certainly more) are: David Tripp, Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, and the Mystery of the Lost 1933 Double Eagle (Free Press, 2004); James Twining, The Double Eagle (HarperTorch, 2006); Alison Frankel, Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin (W. W. Norton, 2007); and Steven P. Gower, The Secrets of the Majestic Meridian (US Books Publisher, 2024); the documentary is: “Why This 1933 Double Eagle Coin Will be Worth Millions,” Smithsonian Channel (YouTube), 20 May 2013; the TV series episode is: “Fool’s Gold,” The Closer (Season 7, Episode 17; 16 July 2012) on TNT.]
Known to coin collectors as a double eagle because it was worth twice as much as a $10 eagle gold piece, it was struck in 1933, the year in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. He also ordered that year’s run of $20 pieces destroyed, except for two that were earmarked for the Smithsonian Institution.
The double eagle that Mr. Redden put in his briefcase somehow escaped that fate. It apparently made its way to Egypt and back, and was seized by the Secret Service in a sting operation at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in 1996 [all in Part 1].
Compared to all that, the trip to the historical society was somewhat short on drama. The crowd-pleasing chaos of “Die Hard With a Vengeance,” a [1995] Bruce Willis movie with a bad guy who broke into the Fed underground after a subway crash and made off with lots of gold in a dump truck? No. Mr. Redden made off with a tiny amount of gold — the double eagle is only 34 millimeters wide and weighs just under an ounce — in a black sports-utility vehicle with an armed former police officer at the wheel and another in the front passenger seat.
“For collectors,” he said as the S.U.V. barreled up the West Side Highway, “it’s almost a mystical experience to look at it.” He said this while looking at an almost identical double eagle, one from 1923 that did not have to be destroyed because it had been in circulation. He carries that coin with him everywhere, the way other people carry their cellphones. (He has one of those, too.)
Some coin experts consider the 1933 double eagle the Mona Lisa of coins. Steve Roach [b. ca. 1981], the editor of Coin World magazine, suggested a slightly different description: “The Hope Diamond of American numismatics.” It is the only 1933 double eagle that someone can own legally. On one side of the coin is Liberty, “her hair whipping in the wind,” in the words of David Tripp [b. 1951], who wrote about the double eagle [see note about books above]. On the other side is an eagle patterned after the image on pennies issued a couple of years before the Civil War.
“There are few coins that can capture the public’s imagination in the way that this coin can,” Mr. Roach said. “It’s a unique combination of beauty, desirability and mystery. It’s so rare, but it has such an interesting back story.”
One element of the back story, he said, is the current owner, who has never been identified [coming below]. “It’s one of the wonderful mysteries of coin collecting, who bought that coin,” Mr. Roach said.
Mr. Redden described the owner as “a fabulous collector who was completely captivated by the story of the coin,” but not a coin collector.
“After he bought it, he said, ‘I don’t want to take it home, I don’t want to put it in a bank vault — what should I do with it?’” Mr. Redden recalled. “I said the Fed is planning a show [see Part 2]. It was the star of that show for years.”
But last fall, the Fed sent the coin off to the vault. “The owner is interested in letting the public see it,” Mr. Redden said. The historical society beckoned, and the two security men followed Mr. Redden from the S.U.V. through the society’s back door. They watched as exhibition designers polished its case and tested the alarm, just in case.
“I don’t know what the threat level on this particular item is, because if they steal it, who’s going to buy it?” one of the security men, Louis Guiliano [b. ca. 1962], said. “If you can’t fence the coin, it’s not valuable. It’s only valuable if you can get someone to pay you.”
[James Barron is a Metro reporter and columnist for the New York Times. He’s the author of the books Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand (Times Books, 2006) and The One-Cent Magenta (Algonquin Books, 2017), and the editor of The New York Times Book of New York (Black Dog & Leventhal; distributed by Workman Pub. Co., 2009).]
* *
* *
“A COLLECTOR
DECIDES IT’S TIME TO PART WITH HIS TREASURES”
by James Barron
[At long last, the name of the winner of the 2002 auction of the 1933 Double Eagle has been revealed. This James Barron report ran in the New York Times on 11 March 2021 (Sec. C [“Arts”]) and was also posted on the paper’s website as “He Owns World Famous Stamps and a Prized Coin. Now He’s Selling” on 10 March.” (The online version of Barron’s article includes illustrations from the print edition: the “treasures” auctioned, including the 1933 Double Eagle.]
On the day in 1918 when the Postal Service [then the Post Office Department (until 1971); a Cabinet department from 1872] began selling stamps with an image of a newfangled airplane, a 29-year-old stockbroker’s clerk and stamp collector went out on his lunch hour to buy some. He emerged from the nearest post office with a single sheet of 100.
Soon federal agents were hunting for him and demanding them back.
The airplane on the stamps was — uh-oh — upside down. The clerk had stumbled across one of the most celebrated stamp mistakes in history, the famously misprinted Inverted Jenny.
A block of four stamps from that single sheet — the only one known to exist — will go on display, by appointment, at Sotheby’s in Manhattan on Thursday in preparation for an auction June 8 [2021].
The quartet, known to collectors as the “plate block,” is one of three rarities owned by Stuart Weitzman [b. 1942; shoe designer, philatelist, and founder of the eponymous shoe company], the designer and entrepreneur known for creating strappy gladiator sandals, thigh-high boots and other shoes that have been worn by everyone from Kate Moss [b. 1974; English model] in his advertisements to Kate Middleton [Catherine, Princess of Wales; b. 1982; wife of William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne] in paparazzi photos.
The other two items in the auction are also marketed with superlatives. Weitzman is selling the world’s most valuable single stamp, the 1856 One-Cent Magenta from British Guiana [British colony on the northern coast of South America, until 1966, when it became the independent nation of Guyana], which he bought in 2014, and one of the world’s most valuable coins, a $20 U.S. gold piece that was minted in 1933 and is known as a double eagle. Weitzman paid $7.6 million for it in 2002, at the time the highest price any coin had ever sold for.
[It’s noteworthy that James Barron, the author of this report, wrote a book entitled The One-Cent Magenta about this very stamp in 2017 (see brief author’s biography above). It tells the stories of those who have bought, owned, and sold “the most valuable stamp in the world” (including Stuart Weitzman). It may or may not be coincidental.]
Weitzman, 79, said that owning the three items had fulfilled a boyhood dream of collecting that began as a rookie with stamps and coins. As an adult, he said several years ago, he focused on pursuing one-of-kind items with lasting value. Now, though, he said, it was time to plan ahead.
“No one takes a U-Haul to the cemetery,” he said. “We have to figure out what to do with all this stuff.”
“The reason I’m doing the selling is my children don’t want to inherit these items,” added Weitzman, who sold his company to the luxury fashion house Coach in 2015 for $574 million [$774.5 million today]. “They say, ‘It’s great to do with them what you did, but we don’t want to have to worry about them, fuss with them, protect them, figure out what to do with them.’”
The money from selling the three items — as much as $37 million [$43.7 million today], based on Sotheby’s presale estimates [the actual auction price will be reported in the last article in this post] — will go to charitable ventures, including the Weitzman Family Foundation.
[The Weitzman Family Foundation is a private, grantmaking foundation that funds charitable organizations and causes. It financially supports organizations involved in left-leaning advocacy on issues like environmentalism, criminal justice, health care, housing, voting, immigration, media, and the arts.]
Richard Austin, head of books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, said it was “very difficult not to use hyperbole” in describing any one of the three. “For one person to accumulate all these treasures is unusual,” he said. “It’s a childhood collecting fantasy that he was able to make come true. I don’t even know if Stuart appreciates how unusual this is.”
Robert G. Rose [b. ca. 1943], chairman of the nonprofit Philatelic Foundation, which authenticates stamps, was similarly impressed. “You’re talking about two of the most iconic pieces in all of Stamp World, all of philately,” he said. “And of course there’s the coin. It’s one of a kind as well.”
Sotheby’s expects to sell the Inverted Jenny plate block for $5 million to $7 million [$5.9-8.3 million] in 2025] and the double eagle for $10 million to $15 million [$11.8-23.6 million].
Weitzman’s identity as the owner of the double eagle is being revealed here for the first time. Sotheby’s never revealed the buyer after the 2002 sale, and even internally some Sotheby’s employees referred to the purchaser simply as “Mr. Big.” There was speculation that the owner was Bill Gates [b. 1955; businessman and philanthropist; co-founder of Microsoft in 1975] or Steve Jobs [1955-2011; businessman, inventor, and investor; co-founder of Apple Inc. in 1976]. The coin was on display at the New-York Historical Society from 2013 until last month, but the museum merely labeled it “Property of a Private Collector.”
The double eagle is unique: No other double eagles can be privately owned. The 445,500 that were made were supposed to be melted down. But 20, including Weitzman’s, were stolen from the mint. Some ended up in the hands of a Philadelphia jeweler and coin dealer who sold nine of them in the 1940s. In 2004, when his daughter discovered 10 others in his safe deposit box, the government challenged her claim of ownership, and won. The 10 were taken to Fort Knox, leaving Weitzman’s double eagle the only one from 1933 that can legally be sold.
The One-Cent Magenta is also unique — apparently the others printed with it were discarded — and is considered by some collectors to be the “Mona Lisa” of stamps. In the 1920s, it was owned by a textile entrepreneur who was said to have outbid King George V [1865-1936; King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India: 1910-36] when he bought it for $32,250 [$603.1 million in 2025].
Weitzman purchased it from the estate of a later owner, John E. du Pont [1938-2010; philanthropist and convicted murderer], an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune who had acquired it in 1980, before he went to prison for the murder of Olympic wrestler and coach Dave Schultz [1959-1996; Olympic and World champion wrestler]. The killing served as the basis for the 2014 film “Foxcatcher.”
[DuPont shot Schultz to death on 26 January 1996 and he was arrested two days later after a stand-off with police at his Pennsylvania farm estate, Foxcatcher. On 25 February 1997, he was convicted of third-degree murder, but determined to be mentally ill, but not insane. He was sentenced to 13 to 30 years' incarceration. He was transferred to prison on 15 May 1997 and died in prison at the age of 72 on 9 December 2010, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).]
Like the One-Cent Magenta’s past owners, Weitzman left his mark, a stiletto heel, on the back of the tiny stamp. Among stamp collectors, it is not unusual for the owners of great rarities to put their initials or a symbol on [the] backs of the stamps. Purists cringe, but many philatelists say that doing so — carefully, and tinily — does not damage a stamp or detract from its value.
As for the Inverted Jennies, there is only one plate block, the corner of the original sheet with the number identifying the plate used on each page of stamps at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The sheet of 100 was broken up by Col. Edward H.R. Green [1868-1936; businessman and politician], a fanatical collector whose mother was the stingy financier [Henrietta “Hetty” Green; 1834-1916; “the richest woman in America” during the Gilded Age] known as the “Witch of Wall Street.” The other 96 stamps on the sheet have been sold one by one, but the four adjacent to the plate number have remained intact.
Green was the third owner of the sheet. For the first owner — William T. Robey [ca. 1889-1949], the stockbroker’s clerk — it was the lucky find of a lifetime. He paid $24 [$508 today], the face value of the 100 stamps, when he went to a Washington post office on the day they went on sale.
Robey soon turned a profit of $14,976 [$317.2 million in 2025], selling the sheet of 100 stamps for $15,000 [$317.7 million today], enough to buy a new car, which he is said to have driven through the wall of the garage that came with his new house. The dealer who purchased them promptly turned a profit of $5,000 [$105.9 million] by marking up the price $20,000 [$423.6 million] for Green. The plate block has changed hands several times since then, most recently when Weitzman acquired it in 2014.
For years, Weitzman kept quiet about his collecting, not wanting the publicity. In 2012, 10 years after he had bought the double eagle, it was the centerpiece of a display at the Federal Reserve in Lower Manhattan. David Tripp, the special consultant to Sotheby’s on coins, did not know who owned the coin when, at the opening of the exhibit, he was approached by David N. Redden, the Sotheby’s executive who had handled the auction in 2002. Redden had two people in tow.
“David said, ‘I’ve got a friend here with his daughter. His name is Stuart. Tell him about the coin,’” Tripp recalled.
Tripp, unsuspecting, went on to describe the particulars of the coin to the man who owned it.
“Years later,” Tripp said, “when David told me Stuart Weitzman was the owner, Stuart Weitzman the great designer of shoes, I clicked on Google and said, ‘I’ve met that guy before.’”
* *
* *
“THE WORLD’S MOST
VALUABLE COIN
by Nora McGreevy
[The online Smithsonian Magazine of 11 June 2021 contained extensive coverage by Nora McGreevy of the auction of some treasures of now-former owner of the famous 1933 Double Eagle once owned by Egypt’s King Farouk. This was the latest news report pertaining to the storied gold coin I found on the ‘Net.
[Somehow, I doubt it’s the end of the saga, though. You’ve heard of a bad penny. This is about a badass gold piece.]
Three collectibles, including a 1993 gold “Double Eagle” and the world’s rarest stamp, fetched more than $30 million at Sotheby’s
Three small collector’s items, each small enough to hold in the palm of one’s hand, broke records on Tuesday [8 June 2021] when they sold for more than $30 million [$35.4 million today] in New York City.
Luxury shoe designer Stuart Weitzman auctioned off the rare objects, dubbed the “Three Treasures,” at Sotheby’s, reports James Barron [b. 1955] for the New York Times. The trio included a shiny gold coin, a set of famously misprinted stamps and a small scrap of magenta paper popularly called “the world’s rarest stamp.”
Of the three, the 1933 “Double Eagle” stole the show, becoming the world’s most valuable coin by selling for a whopping $18.9 million [$22.3 million in 2025]. (The buyer did not want to be identified. [I checked: his name is still unrevealed as of this posting.]) Per a statement, Weitzman purchased the gold $20 coin for $7.59 million [$13.5 million today] in 2002; this time around, it was estimated to fetch between $10 and $15 million.
The Double Eagle coin was the last gold currency struck in the United States, reports Reuters. The newly sold specimen’s value stems from its status as the only legally privately owned 1933 Double Eagle known to survive today.
President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned the coin in the early 1900s from the country’s then-preeminent sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. [nb: This statement is slightly misleading. The first Double Eagle was authorized in 1849 by President James K. Polk (1795-1849; 11th President of the United States: 1845-49); see my note about the 1907 design in Part 2.] Battling terminal cancer at the time, the artist took up the assignment cautiously.
“I have long wished to do what little I could to improve the shameful condition of our money, but now that I have the opportunity I approach it with fear and trembling,” wrote Saint-Gaudens to a scholar and collector in 1905, according to the Sotheby’s listing.
The Double Eagle’s final design is widely lauded as one of the most beautiful of all time. First minted in 1907, the coin features an image of Lady Liberty striding forward on its obverse and an eagle in flight on its reverse. As Owen Edwards reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2008, the sculptor based the figure of Liberty on Harriette Eugenia Anderson [1873-1938], a well-known model of African American descent from South Carolina.
In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt moved the country off the gold standard in hopes of bolstering an economy ravaged by the Great Depression. The following year, the U.S. Mint’s director ordered the melting of all 1933 Double Eagles, which had been struck but never issued. Two specimens were given to the Smithsonian Institution, which now houses the coins in the National Museum of American History’s collections.
Despite the Mint’s best efforts, a handful of the rare coins escaped destruction and ended up in private hands. A tangled web of lawsuits and criminal investigations ensued, but the government eventually recovered the stolen coins—aside from this one. Due to a legal battle between the U.S. Treasury and the coin’s previous owner, the record-breaking Double Eagle is the only of its kind that a private person can lawfully own, notes Oscar Holland [b. ca. 1988] for CNN.
Outside of the Double Eagle, the Sotheby’s sale also sought to make stamp collecting history. But as Neda Ulaby [b. 1970] reports for NPR, the auction’s two stamp lots failed to break previous records.
Carrying an estimate of $10 to $15 million, the 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta sold for the still-hefty figure of $8.3 million [$9.8 million in 2025]. (Weitzman purchased the stamp in 2014 for $9.48 million [$11.2 million].) According to Alex Palmer of Smithsonian, the unassuming pink paper is the only known specimen of its kind and has long represented a kind of Holy Grail for stamp collecting enthusiasts.
Shaped like octagons, these small stamps were issued by a local newspaper in the South American colony of British Guiana (now Guyana) during a stamp shortage. Most collectors assumed that the one-off stamps were lost to time, but in 1873, Vernon Vaughan, a 12-year-old Scottish boy and budding stamp enthusiast, discovered a specimen among his uncle’s papers. He sold it for six shillings—the equivalent of about $11 today [and $13 in 2025].
The One-Cent Magenta’s notoriety grew when it came into the possession of famed stamp collector Count Philippe la Renotière von Ferrary [1850-1917] in 1878. The stamp’s list of wealthy, well-known owners has only lengthened over the decades.
Also on Tuesday, American billionaire and philanthropist David Rubenstein [b. 1949; lawyer, businessman, and philanthropist] made the winning bid for a 1918 24-cent “Inverted Jenny” plate block, a quartet of misprinted U.S. Postal Service [sic; Post Office Department] stamps that number among the most famous in the nation’s history. The design features a blue Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane, which was mistakenly printed upside down, as Edwards Park reported for Smithsonian in 1996.
Rubenstein purchased the “Jennies” for $4.86 million [$5.7 million today]—just under its estimate of $5 to $7 million [$5.9-8.3 million]. Despite fetching less than anticipated, the block remains the second-most valuable philatelic (stamp-related) object ever sold, after the One-Cent Magenta, according to Sotheby’s.
In a post-sale statement, Weitzman says that uniting these three rare items in one collection was a “childhood dream.” All proceeds will go to his family foundation and other charitable causes.
“I started coin collecting to pass the time in a full leg cast at the age of 12, and later became interested in stamps when my older brother left behind the stamp book he’d started when he went to college,” the designer adds. “Today truly marked the culmination of a life’s work.”
[Nora McGreevy is a former daily correspondent for Smithsonian. She’s also a freelance journalist based in Chicago whose work has appeared in Wired, Washingtonian, the Boston Globe, South Bend Tribune, the New York Times, and more.
[As I noted at the end of Part 1. a lengthy account of the whole story of the Double Eagles is online in “The Ultimate Coin: The 1933 Double Eagle” on the Sotheby’s website. It’s loaded with additional details, so it’s very long (with footnotes). You’ll need to scroll down a bit to find the story.]
No comments:
Post a Comment