US Mint must seek court OK to keep rare 1933 coins
The
Ownership of the 10 gold coins — worth millions of dollars
apiece — may be determined by a jury in a weeks-long forfeiture hearing.
The family of the late Israel
Switt is suing to recover the double eagles, so named because they had a face
value of $20, twice the amount of gold coins known as eagles.
The government argues that none of
the coins were removed legally from the Mint when President Franklin D.
Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in 1933. The stockpiled double eagles
minted that year and waiting to go into circulation were instead melted down,
although a few apparently survived.
The judge's order released
Wednesday calls for the government to initiate a forfeiture hearing by Sept.
28. The hearing would likely amount to a trial in which the government would
have to prove Switt's family never legally possessed them, a family lawyer
said.
Lawyer Barry Berke argues that
some coins could have left the Mint
legally through a gold exchange program in place at the time that attracted
jewelers like Switt.
"There was a period of time
where it was permissible to exchange gold coins for gold bullion," said
Berke, who represents Switt's daughter, Joan S. Langbord of
They say they found the coins in a
safe deposit box in 2003, 13 years after Switt died.
The following year, they asked the
Mint to authenticate them and suggested they were open to a negotiated
settlement, perhaps akin to the 50-50 split reached in a previous case
involving one double eagle coin.
The
collection could be worth nearly $80 million or more. A
comparable double eagle sold for $7.59 million in 2002 — believed to be the
highest price ever paid for a coin.
The family has previously asked
for the coins' return or a settlement of up to $40 million.
U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis
ruled that the government improperly seized the coins and denied the family due
process when Mint officials decided to keep them after they were authenticated
without a hearing.
"The government's
'good-faith' belief that the coins were once stolen is not sufficient, under
the circumstances, to justify its decision to conduct a warrantless
seizure,"
Federal prosecutors representing
the Mint declined through a
spokeswoman to comment Friday.
In a statement, the family noted
Israel Switt's combat service in World War II and said they have tried to be
open with the government throughout the long case.
"Perhaps this was only a
minor and personal battle, but nevertheless it is one where a family's rights
to receive fair treatment from the government of the
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