1933 Double Eagle vs 1804 Silver Dollar
Raptor48
Posts: 26 ✭✭✭
Any thoughts on why Treasury, Secret Service and FBI spent so much time and money tracking down and confiscating 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles versus the Class II and III Draped Bust Silver Dollars being allowed to freely circulate oin private hands? Neither coin(s) were legally issued by the mint for general circulation. (I'm intentionally excluding the King Farouk, the King of Siam and the Sultan of Muscat coins from this comparison.)
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You don't even have to go back that far for comparisons. There are also the 1913 Liberty nickels.
The feds did/do pursue 1974 aluminum cents that pop up (aside from legitimate off-metal errors).
In some cases they obviously believe that the chain of legitimate ownership can't possibly include private citizens so they go after those.
It's arbitrary. If they ever went after anything, it should have been the 1913 nickels. That was obvious theft.
Many proof errors of the 1970s were also obviously unofficial and therefore illegal concoctions, but for some reason they ignore those.
But they did go after NORFED's Liberty Dollars as counterfeit coins despite what should have been a very weak case, to say the least.
I'm not sure there is any way to make sense of it all. Just be informed about which numismatic treasures you can boast about owning and which ones you need to keep under wraps.
The 1974 aluminum cents > @Raptor48 said:
The production of the 1933 Saints was official, but they weren’t authorized for release, so were presumed to be stolen from the Mint. The 1804 dollars didn’t/don’t suffer from the same presumption.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Perhaps it has to do with intent of purpose. The original 1804 dollars were meant to be numismatic gifts and the secondary pieces slipped under the radar as the government's staff lacked the numismatic capabilities to separate those from the original (identifying die markers).
The 1933 double eagles are fairly well documented. None were yet in any collection or worthy of being considered collectible when the government issued the gold recall, therefore that idea of letting them stand as collectible pieces rather than common coins is not a factor. Should that argument had been made before the first coins were pursued as "illegal" pieces, the course of history may have changed.
Maybe the 1913 coins could be considered assay coins. Is there a direct Mint report indicating their creation? What standard should assay coins be held to in respect to ordinary pieces?
The illegal status of the aluminum cents makes sense because those coins are essentially the remnants of a project that was canceled.
A similar argument could be made for the 1884 and 1885 trade dollars. The 5 known 1885 pieces are documented as medals as are the ten surviving 1884 pieces, however the Mint had started what was to them a normal production run of those pieces and were then caught in the act making a discontinued coin.
Does the Mint have the authority to strike retired coins as medals with Congressional approval?
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I did a bit more research and it seems in the case of the 1913 nickels the original seller could not be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. That doesn't explain why they could not be confiscated like the Double Eagles were. In the case of the Double Eagles there are Roosevelt's executive orders which makes their ownership murky. There is also the confusion about whether mints authority (and hence their requests to FBI and Secret Service to hunt down "illegal" ownership of coins, pattern pieces, dies or medals) is based on congressional laws versus white house directives. As for the latter, that confusion remains.
I don't blame em. I would rather have a 1933 double eagle than a 1804 dollar.
It mostly has to do with the fact that the 1933 double is made of gold, and Franklin Roosevelt called in the gold. If it had been Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover, there would not have been a problem with owning them. Some of the Class II and III 1804 dollars may be questionable. I have never viewed the 1913 Liberty Nickel to be a legitimate issue.
The Treasury declared war on gold in 1933, and the $20’s, once it was discovered that they had gotten out, were casualties of war.
How about the sticky fingers of Eva Adams with the 1964 SMS coins that were found in her home after her death, not exactly authorized.
I doubt that they were considered anything special in 1964. Even in 1965 SMS coins were only considered to be slightly nicer Uncirculated coins.
Not everyone wi> @CaptHenway said:
Even if they were considered special back then, I’m not aware of any that were found in Eva Adams’ home. I took the post as a joke.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
As it was indeed intended.
Aren't jokes supposed to be funny?
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Well they did find a number of them among the items in her estate, which is somewhat speculative but documented, after she passed and they were sold in 1991, not exactly standard procedure for government property. Lester Merkin purchased them from her estate and later sold them, not sure if he had them graded or if the purchasers did. So yeah, it is funny in an odd way. Most mint personnel don't get free copies. Coin World discussed it on 12/7/2011, and though it is somewhat "enigmatic," some were minted and some may have been given to dignitaries like LBJ, but most are presumed to be in the items from her estate purchased by Merkin.
This seems typical of the lore around coins that exist that were not really meant for production, and clearly not for sale.
Was all of the above stated in the Coin World article you mentioned, or is some of it from other articles you’ve read?
Edited to add: I found a 12/2/2011 Coin World article (linked and copied below) but not one from 12/7/2011. The one I found didn’t mention much of what you posted.
https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/1964-sms-coins-are-enigmatic.html
The 1964 Special Mint set coins are among the more enigmatic coins produced in the modern era. The individual Kennedy half dollars bring the highest prices, with the MS-67 SMS example shown selling for $16,100 at auction in January 2010. Most estimates place the mintage of 1964 SMS sets at 15 to 50.
Images courtesy of HeritageAuctions.com.
The Nov. 14 installment of “Making Moderns” discussed the Special Mint Sets produced in 1965, 1966 and 1967. Yet, some 1964 issues exist with the SMS finish and they are among the most mysterious U.S. coins of the modern era.
According to Scott Schechter and Jeff Garrett’s book, 100 Greatest Modern U.S. Coins, 1964 coins with the SMS finish used from 1965 to 1967 surfaced in 1993 at a Stack’s auction.
On the mystery, the authors write, “There was no way to explain the existence of a 1964 Special Mint Set, as Proof coins were produced that year and no documentation concerning the creation of a 1964 Special Mint Set exists.”
What is consistent about all of the known examples is that they’re sharper and better produced than any regular 1964 circulation strike, but lack the Brilliant Proof finish of that year. Some auction lot descriptions have noted that the 1964 pieces lack the reflectivity seen on the 1965 SMS pieces. The majority of the 1964 SMS pieces that have survived are in exceptional condition.
Several theories have been put forth about their origin. The coins may have been produced as practice to assess the feasibility of production. They could have also been presentation coins issued to honor the final 90 percent silver coins or the introduction of the Kennedy half dollar.
While they may have been produced in 1964, some suggest that they may have been struck in early 1965, and a date of 1966 has also been proposed. Stack’s has noted that the set offered in 1993 was from the estate of a coin dealer. Speculation holds that they may have come from dealer Lester Merkin, who might have acquired them from a Mint employee, possibly former Mint Director Eva Adams. Adams was director from 1961 to 1969 and passed away in 1991.
With no mintage records, one can only use grading service population reports and instinct to estimate the population, but these coins continue to be rare. Most estimates place the mintage of 1964 SMS sets at 15 to 50 sets.
These coins are infrequently offered and their pricing is inconsistent. For example, an SMS 1964 Washington quarter dollar graded Mint State 66 SMS realized $1,265 at a 2009 Heritage sale, with other auction results for cent through quarter dollars cluster at the $3,000 to $4,000 range.
SMS 1964 Kennedy half dollars bring the highest prices. An MS-67 SMS example realized $16,100 in January 2010 and an MS-68 SMS piece realized $10,350 at an April 2009 Heritage auction.
The 1964 SMS coins are among the more enigmatic coins produced in the modern era. More may be out there, waiting to be discovered and confirmed by major grading services.
Steven Roach is associate editor of Coin World. Email him at sroach@coinworld.com.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
As I said this is the sort of lore around coins that were produced but should not have existed. Here are some of the cited sources that I found (I am not vouching for their accuracy, but they all seem to repeat the same theme and time has erased a final answer):
https://www.pcgs.com/news/1964-Special-Mint-Set-Coins
https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/1964-sms-coins-are-enigmatic.html
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1080218/1964-sms-nickel (citing to FlyingAl's post)
Your prior post made it sound as if what you wrote was contained in the Coin World article.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I met Ms. Adams while I was working for Coin World, though this was after she retired from the Mint. She seemed like a nice enough Lady.
I think that it was quite out of line for you to infer that she stole the coins ("sticky fingers") without any evidence that she did so. It is one think to talk about anonymous Mint employees (such as the hypothetical "Midnight Minter") making rarities and smuggling them out of the Mint, but this is a real person you are besmirching here. Please retract that comment.
Perhaps these were presented to her at some time as examples of what the Mint might someday do as collector coins. We don't know if that happened. It is equally plausible that she might simply have asked the Mint's Cashier to buy some current coins to give away as gifts, and the Cashier told the Coiner "Hey, the Boss wants some current coins to give away as gifts," and the Coiner made up some nice ones for her, using techniques that later got incorporated into the SMS coin productions. Again, we do not know.
Some of the various relief and/or finish Proof 1922 Peace dollars were traced to the Director of the Mint in early 1922, who apparently gave them away while on a vacation to his home town in the San Francisco Bay area. I am sure he paid the Mint $1 each for them.
TD