The Associated Press has issued a report following the decision by a Federal Appeals Judge to return 10 very valuable 1933 St. Gaudens coins to the Langbord family. Why so valuable? If you know your U.S. History, 1933 was the year that private ownership of gold coins became a punishable crime. See: Executive Order 6102. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on April 17 vacated a previous declaratory judgment by a district court that declared the coins as government property that was unlawfully removed from the U.S. Mint.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A U.S. appeals court Friday overturned a jury verdict and awarded a Philadelphia family the rights to 10 rare gold coins that could fetch $80 million.
U.S. Treasury officials insist the $20 Saint-Gaudens “Double Eagles” were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before the 1933 series was melted down when the country went off the gold standard. They argue that Joan Langbord and her sons cannot lawfully own the coins she said she found in a family bank deposit box in 2003.
Her father, jeweler Israel Switt, had dealings with the Mint in the 1930s and was twice investigated over his coin holdings. A jury in 2012 sided with the government.
However, the appeals court Friday returned the coins to the Langbords because U.S. officials had not responded within the 90-day limit to the family’s seized property claim, filed in about 2004.