To the Point
Famous Golden 'Double-Eagles' in a Safe Deposit Box
When Franklin Roosevelt took the US off the gold standard in 1933, almost a half-million $20 gold pieces were melted down. Only one of the missing coins has ever been sold publicly — for $7.6 million in 2002. Now ten more have turned up.
By Warren Olney • • 1 min readWhen Franklin Roosevelt took the US off the gold standard in 1933, almost a half-million $20 gold pieces were melted down. Only one of the missing coins has ever been sold publicly — for $7.6 million in 2002. Now ten more have turned up. A federal judge has ordered that the Treasury Department must prove that these "double eagles" were stolen from the US Mint some time in the 1930's by a Philadelphia jeweler named Israel Switt. If it can't make the case, the judge says they'll have to be given back to Switt's grandson, Roy Langbord. That's reported by John Schwartz in today's New York Times.
