Why is it legal to possess "counterfeit" Liberty Dollars ?
dcarr
Posts: 9,162 ✭✭✭✭✭
Bernard Von Nothaus was charged with "counterfeiting".
A large quantity of the "Liberty Dollars", owned by a wide variety of people, were seized by the government as "counterfeits".
Von Nothaus was convicted of "counterfeiting" in the Liberty Dollar case.
Later, the US government returned the vast majority of those "counterfeit" coins to their owners:
It appears that the US government thinks that it is ok to possess these "counterfeit" coins.
They even had to go to all the trouble to return a lot of them back to all their individual owners.
If they had any notion that these were illegal to possess, they wouldn't have gone to all that trouble.
Here is some more information regarding the Liberty Dollars that I hadn't realized before:
The court order to return seized Liberty Dollars to their owners apparently declared that most of the coins were not contraband and could be returned. A small percentage were deemed to be contraband and were not returned.
So what was the difference between the contraband and non-contraband coins ?
Apparently, coins that were minted prior to the "warning" were not contraband. Here is a footnote from the court order (linked from the Coin World article):
"The United States and the Defendant conservatively defined illegal per se contraband as anything minted 2007 or later, even though, under the Court’s criteria, some coins dated 2006 and minted in 2006 after the warning would be contraband if the parties were able to determine precisely when, in 2006, the coins were minted. The [this] led to a relatively small list of illegal per se contraband items that cannot be claimed in this ancillary hearing and a relatively large list of items that third party petitioners may claim. Nonetheless, as detailed below, some Petitioners have asserted interest in property that is illegal per se."
And what was this "warning" ? Apparently that was a September 2006 press release from the US Mint stating that Liberty Dollars were not legal tender currency:
coinsblog.ws/2006/09/warning-liberty-dollar-is-not-legal.html
It is interesting that pre-warning Liberty Dollars were not considered by the court to be "contraband".
Comments
Seems like a waste of time for US Gov't just like the Langboard case. Why can't this be considered at medium of barter like BItCoin? Why does the government leave BitCoin alone?
That poses and interesting question... Why cannot other counterfeit items be considered contraband unless a warning is issued? OK... I guess there is an answer ... the law stating counterfeiting is illegal IS the warning. It did not apply in this case since the medium was not a 'copy' of U.S. money. Thanks for posting that Dan... Cheers, RickO
I was part if that case to reclaim confiscated medals. Based on the volumes of legal documents that sent me I think it was more than a matter of when something was struck.
Certain designs of LD were declared counterfeit while others were not. The Ron Paul copper dollars I got back were not, for example.
And what exactly did he "counterfeit?"
Nothing he ever made was a counterfeit piece to US Coinage He used the term "dollar" and that's what irked the feds. As the Liberty Dollar venture grew, and Von Nothaus began to encourage people to use them in commerce (I believe he suggested on his website to try and pay for goods by letting the heft of the silver rounds fall into the merchant's hand) the line in the sand was crossed.
But, counterfeit? The design he used was similar to Liberty Gold designs, but in my opinion it wasn't meant to deceive people into thinking it was a US Mint product.
I'm sure others have their own thoughts.
I wonder what happened to the collectable market for pieces that became instant rarities after the feds raided his operation? And after some of this pieces were ordered returned to owners?
It is also interesting to note that he continues to mint pieces, but he now marks his rounds more specifically like "Not to be used as current money." The Trump campaign medals are an example.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Von Nothaus was convicted of counterfeiting in the Liberty Dollar case. His products were in a likeness or similitude of a coin; further, he presented them as "money" which is what got the Secret Service's attention.
The court also decided it was unreasonable to punish innocent purchases of the tokens since the purpose was to punish the perpetrator not his victims. However, victims received no restitution for their payment of inflated values of von Nuthaus's crime.
Interested parties can read the entire court decision and related materials for themselves - preferably before making uninformed public speculations.
Seems like overreach to me. I do not recognize any of his productions as US Mint product copies - which is much different than your overstrikes.
I don't know. I'd rather see Tom Noe get pardoned.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Did you get back any Liberty Dollars that had an apparent face value ?
Can you provide a list of the types of "coins" you got back ?
I only had a claim for (20) copper Ron Paul "dollars", and I got them all back, but I am not sure off the top of my head how the "denomination" was stated on them.
Like this ?:
My PC is not loading photos at the moment, but mine would have been the 2008 RP "dollars". I found pics on the archived LD site, and they seem to just say $1, and not "suggested retail value" or MSRP or whatever the current LDs say.
I say balderdash, but most people here know I feel that way
I have collected a few, need to image them.....But the rarer ones have become beyond reasonable to purchase them.
So i'll wait for them to die down in popularity and get them then.
I have more of the common pieces
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
I have wondered who in the leadership somewhere that he irked to have such a heavy handed response to making those things?
Agreed, but I will say that the judge in the case seemed to show some mercy or restraint. As far as I know, BvN never served time in jail (at least not significant time), only house arrest/home confinement.