The Saints are Marching In! 1933 Double Eagles to return to Pennsylvania

The Saints are marching in!

Congratulations to Joan Langbord.  The 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a previous ruling and stated that Joan Langbord is the owner of the ten 1933 Saint Gaudens double eagles.

I am sure the back story is old hat to most of you, but the double eagles were somehow taken from the mint in 1933, shortly before gold coins were removed from circulation by Franklin Roosevelt. The government had made circumstantial arguments that the coins were probably stolen by Israel Switt, Joan Langbord's father.  Langbord "found" the coins and (foolhardily) sent them to the Secret Service to be authenticated.  The secret service authenticated and confiscated them.  In 2011 a federal jury ruled that the government had the right to keep the coins.

Read about the backstory on my website here. Or on my blog here. Or some other schmo's website here: http://saintgaudens.us/confiscated%20double%20eagles.html.

But the result of today's 2-1 vote was that it was the government that had broken the law.  The government was required to either return the coins or commence a civil forfeiture proceeding within 90 days.  The government did neither of these things.  Todays ruling shows that even the Department of Justice is not above the law.

The government has been fixated on these coins for over 80 years (while oddly ignoring other similar cases such as the 1913 liberty head nickel).  It is probably time for them to go on to something else.

Meanwhile, I admit it.  I am giddy about today's decision.  At some time in the future we will see some 1933 double eagles in the marketplace.

To the 1933 double eagles -- we look forward to seeing you back home in Philadelphia.

US Marshals 226th anniversary coins -- a critique

The US mint is producing a commemorative coin series to depict the 225^th anniversary of the United States Marshals Service.  This is my critique.  Spoiler alert – it’s not pretty (but neither are the coins).

Who celebrates a 225^th anniversary?  I recall the American bicentennial celebration of 1976.  Twenty five years later, the 225^th anniversary of the US went unnoticed.  Even worse is the fact that the 225^th anniversary of the US marshall service was in 2014, but the coins are produced in 2015.  So we are really celebrating the 226^th anniversary.  The coins have both the dates “1789 – 2014” and the date 2015.  Ridiculous.

The five dollar gold coin has two sides that look like reverses.  The theme of the coin (according to the advertising brochure) is “225 years of sacrifice.”  In order to show the theme, the designer merely wrote the words “225 years of sacrifice.”  Boring.

The silver dollar represents the best effort in the set.  The obverse (which the mint calls the reverse) features a wild west era US Marshall with a wanted poster in hand.  The reverse (which the mint calls the obverse) shows the US Marshall star and some cowboys that have been run over by steam rollers (the mint refers to these as silhouettes).

The clad half dollar is a hodge podge of miscellany. The obverse is shared by an old west marshal and a modern marshal whose hair is pulled by an unseen gravitational field.  The reverse has a plethora of symbols such as a spaghetti-haired blind justice, scales, the marshal’s star, railroad tracks, schoolbooks, handcuffs, the constitution, and a whiskey jug.  Do you know what everything represents?  Yes, all this on a single side of a coin.

The mint’s brochure states that surcharges of $35 per gold coin, $10 per silver coin, and $3 per clad coin are authorized “to be paid to several organizations.”  Sounds vague to me.  Something tells me that these coins will not make the organizations rich.

The mint is producing both uncirculated and proof varieties of each of the three denominations.  Do we really need all these commemorative coins?  

For information and my opinion about other American commemorative coins, please go here.

2016 will be the 121^st anniversary of the first corrugated cardboard box.   Perhaps a commemorative coin set will result.

Will the Jackie Kennedy first spouse coin be popular?

Is Jackie Kennedy three times as popular as Eleanor Roosevelt?  The US mint is counting on it.  For the now anemic first spouse gold coin series, mintages are limited to 10,000 per coin (split between the proof and uncirculated).  For most of the first spouses, the demand has been nowhere near 10,000.  In 2015, the series will be headlined by Jackie Kennedy.  For this coin, the limit will be tripled to 30,000.

Will collectors who have been on the sideline rush towards Jackie?  What do you think?