Last week, JM Bullion ran a contest in connection with our weekly blog post (Can You Guess the 5 Rarest US Coins?) asking our readers to identify the rarest US coins. There were a lot of excellent guesses registered on our Facebook page, but in the end there was only one right answer. JM Bullion follower Steve Kast guessed correctly that the 1933 Saint-Gaudens Gold Double Eagle is the rarest US coin. This week we’re going to look at the history of this coin, including what made it so rare and the court battles that have raged in recent years surrounding the few available specimens.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt had a dream for the future of American currency. At this point in history, most of the designs on American coinage (gold and silver) had been created by US Mint Chief Engraver Charles Barber in 1895. Some of the designs predated even Barber’s creations. President Roosevelt wanted to reinvent the designs on American currency, and his first target was the nation’s stock of gold coins.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Irish-American artist and sculptor, was the first person President Roosevelt reached out to in his quest to revamp American coin designs. In fact, Roosevelt contacted Saint-Gaudens personally in 1905 to ask him if he would lead the charge in redesigning the nation’s coins.
This was no easy task as it turned out, though. Saint-Gaudens had had a rocky experience with the United States Mint in the past, in particular with Charles Barber. His first association with the US Mint came in 1891 when he sat on an advisory panel evaluating entries for the nation’s new silver coinage.
Despite his tense past relationship with Barber and the US Mint, Saint-Gaudens accepted President Roosevelt’s call and began work on a new design for American gold coins. While his $20 Gold Double Eagle design would go down in history as the nation’s most beloved, he actually designed the new $10 eagle coin set, as well.
A Design Ahead of its Time
Saint-Gaudens’ Gold Double Eagle design was well ahead of its time, and the technology of the United States Mint in the early 20th century. He envisioned a new version of Liberty for use on American coins, and spent considerable amounts of time (and various drafts) coming up with a design for the coin’s reverse. Eventually he elected to go with the image of the American bald eagle in flight over the rising sun, but one of his original designs featuring a bald eagle at rest on a collection of arrows and an olive branch was eventually adapted for the new $10 eagle coin.
His final design remains iconic to this day. On the obverse is the image of Liberty holding her torch aloft in her right hand, with an olive branch of peace in her left. She strides forth from the nation’s capital with the rays of the sun at her back. The symbolism identifies her role as a guiding force for a nation marching toward and unknown future. She is surrounded by 46 stars arranged in a circle, with the word “Liberty” above her head and the year of issue engraved in the lower-right field.
The reverse, as mentioned earlier, features the American bald eagle in flight. It is depicted flying over the rising sun as its rays stretch toward the horizon. The only engravings on the original design for the reverse are “United States of America” and “Twenty Dollars.”
Saint-Gaudens’s design was plagued by delays during creation. Though he was commissioned in 1905, the design wasn’t finalized and released until 1907. Much of the delay was due to Saint-Gaudens’ vision for a high-relief version of the coin. At this time, the United States Mint simply lacked the technology to bring his high-relief design to life, resulting in adaptation of the design to accommodate current minting standards.
Another factor played into the continuing delays. Saint-Gaudens had been diagnosed in 1900 with cancer, and it was slowly decreasing his abilities. He would succumb to the disease in 1907, dying months before the US Mint had the new $10 eagles and $20 Gold Double Eagles ready for release.
The 1933 Gold Double Eagle: Why is it So Rare?
Fast-forward to the 1930s, and the United States is in the grip of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt has just taken office, and in a bid to stem the economic brutality of the Great Depression and the banking crisis engulfing the nation, two provisions were enacted by the federal government.
For starters, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 ordering “all persons” to deliver gold coins, bullion, and certificates to the Federal Reserve banking system by May 1, 1933. An additional act occurred one year later when Congress authorized the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, outlawing the circulation and private possession of United States gold coins.
The United States Mint had only begun to strike 1933 $20 Gold Double Eagle coins on March 2, 1933. President Roosevelt’s executive order regarding gold was issued March 6, 1933. Minting of the 1933 Gold Double Eagles continued through May 1933, with a total of 445,500 coins struck. None of these coins were ever officially circulated, and all but two were ordered to be melted down.
Those two coins which were spared were sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where they remain on display to this day. However, an additional 20 coins were spared from melting as a result of theft. The US Secret Service subsequently recovered 19 of them, destroying nine of those coins, and leaving the world with just 10 coins in total.
Controversy over Ownership
Now we come to those 10 remaining 1933 Gold Double Eagle coins. In 2003, Joan Langbord found 10 1933 $20 Gold Double Eagle coins inside a family safe deposit box that originally belonged to her father, a jeweler named Israel Switt. As the New York Daily News notes, the US Department of the Treasury insists that Switt, who had dealings with the US Mint in the 1930s, stole the coins from the Philadelphia Mint facility in 1933 prior to the meltdown of all 1933 Gold Double Eagle coins.
Upon discovering the cache of rare coins, the Langbord family took the coins to the Secret Service to verify their authenticity. The coins were immediately confiscated by the Secret Service, citing the 1930s orders prohibiting anyone from owning them. Langbord’s father had previously admitted in 1944 that he had possession of and eventually sold a set of nine Double Eagles (more on the 10th coin from that set in a moment).
A 2012 jury trial regarding ownership of the 10 coins resulted in jurors siding with the government, and ordering the coins to remain in the possession of the federal government. However, a US appeals court overturned that ruling in early 2015, awarding the 10 coins to the Langbord family. For the record, those coins have an estimated value of $80 million combined.
The Only Privately Circulated 1933 Gold Double Eagle
Regarding that 10th coin from Switt’s set. It is widely believed that Egypt’s King Farouk had private possession of the one circulated 1933 Gold Double Eagle coin in American history. An MS65 specimen, the coin was sold at an auction to a London coin dealer in 2002 for a record $7.59 million, crushing the previous record for a US coin (1804 silver dollar) of $4.14 million.
Fun Facts about the Saint-Gaudens $20 Gold Double Eagle Coin
Here are a few fun facts regarding America’s most beloved historic coin:
- Original design did not include “In God We Trust”: Long considered the national motto, President Theodore Roosevelt did not want Saint-Gaudens to include this phrase on the new coin as he believed it would cheapen God’s name, especially given the proclivity of criminals to use American currency in their illegal activities.
- Congressional Intervention: Congress disagreed with Saint-Gaudens and President Roosevelt, intervening and issuing a Congressional order to include “In God We Trust” on the coin’s reverse design.
- 46 Stars to 48 Stars: Saint-Gaudens’ original design included 46 stars, representing the number of states in the Union in 1907. A Congressional act in 1912 authorized the addition of two stars to the design to represent the inclusion of Arizona and New Mexico in the Union. The two stars were haphazardly added to the design field in the lower right.
- Why “Saint-Gaudens Gold Double Eagle”?: The name of the coin isn’t so much to honor Saint-Gaudens as it is to separate the coin in American history. Since the introduction of American currency following the Coinage Act of 1792, American gold coins were known as “eagles.” The double eagle was the name of the nation’s standard $20 coin, and the eagle was the standard $10 coin. The use of Saint-Gaudens’ name in the title of these coins identified his design on a new generation of $20 Gold Double Eagle coins.
2002 Coin’s Sale was Split with Feds: The London coin dealer who purchased King Farouk’s 1933 Gold Double Eagle was originally jailed by the United States government, and eventually agreed to split the proceeds with the Feds. Interestingly enough, that deal was brokered by attorney Barry Berke, the man who represented the Langbord family in the 2012 trial to retain ownership of the 10 1933 $20 Gold Double Eagles.