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Some interesting facts about the 1933 Double Eagles and the Mint.
saintguru
Posts: 7,724 ✭✭✭
The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 took effect recalling all gold On March 5, 1933 when the Director of the Cashier at the Philadelphia Mint, Harry Powell was notified that NO gold coins were to be exchanged for any other gold.
NO 1933 Double Eagles had "officially" been delivered to the cashier at that time. Production had begun because no one else at the Mint had received any instructions to halt production, as a Mint Director said, 'We're just a factory".
On March 12, 1933 Roosevelt urged all Americans to return their gold to Federal Reserve Banks.
All 1933 Double Eagles were held in Vault F sealed and locked. 500 of those coins were held for official use, set aside in Vault F, 20 being sent to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Standards where they were destroyed during laboratory examination. 34 were held in a "stash" in Vault F for further assaying; the remaining 446 were also set aside in the mint's pyx box in the vault.
On Feb. 14, 1934, George McCann, the Mint cashier at the cage, and assayer Doc Ziegler were ordered to bring the pyx box to the Assay Commission on the third floor of the Mint. Nine were destroyed during the assaying and the remaining 437 coins were returned to the box in the cashier's office. Two coins were sent to the Smithsonian.
On Feb. 3, 1937, four years later, the Treasury ordered that ALL gold coins be sent to the melting room in the basement of the Mint to be destroyed and converted to bullion. George McCann was the man who broke the seal on the vault that day to audit the contents. On Feb. 6, 1937 McCann again broke the seal on the vault and the coins were taken downstairs to be melted. On March 18, 1937 the Mint reported that all 1933 Double Eagles had been melted.
BUT THEY HADN'T.
On Feb. 15, nine days after the meltdown commenced, Izzy Switt, a Philadelphia jeweler and coin dealer with a shady reputation sold a 1933 Double Eagle to James Macallister for $300. More would be discovered as they made their way to the market over the next 5 years, all traced back to Izzy Switt! Switt was a known figure who had a reputation of hanging around the mint frequently...he knew McCann.
This shows that CLEARLY, NO 1933 coins were to be released at all from the Mint. So how did Switt get some 20+ coins that were traced to him (and 10 that miraculously appeared in his safe deposit box 70 years later)? It certainly wasn't done legally.
NO 1933 Double Eagles had "officially" been delivered to the cashier at that time. Production had begun because no one else at the Mint had received any instructions to halt production, as a Mint Director said, 'We're just a factory".
On March 12, 1933 Roosevelt urged all Americans to return their gold to Federal Reserve Banks.
All 1933 Double Eagles were held in Vault F sealed and locked. 500 of those coins were held for official use, set aside in Vault F, 20 being sent to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Standards where they were destroyed during laboratory examination. 34 were held in a "stash" in Vault F for further assaying; the remaining 446 were also set aside in the mint's pyx box in the vault.
On Feb. 14, 1934, George McCann, the Mint cashier at the cage, and assayer Doc Ziegler were ordered to bring the pyx box to the Assay Commission on the third floor of the Mint. Nine were destroyed during the assaying and the remaining 437 coins were returned to the box in the cashier's office. Two coins were sent to the Smithsonian.
On Feb. 3, 1937, four years later, the Treasury ordered that ALL gold coins be sent to the melting room in the basement of the Mint to be destroyed and converted to bullion. George McCann was the man who broke the seal on the vault that day to audit the contents. On Feb. 6, 1937 McCann again broke the seal on the vault and the coins were taken downstairs to be melted. On March 18, 1937 the Mint reported that all 1933 Double Eagles had been melted.
BUT THEY HADN'T.
On Feb. 15, nine days after the meltdown commenced, Izzy Switt, a Philadelphia jeweler and coin dealer with a shady reputation sold a 1933 Double Eagle to James Macallister for $300. More would be discovered as they made their way to the market over the next 5 years, all traced back to Izzy Switt! Switt was a known figure who had a reputation of hanging around the mint frequently...he knew McCann.
This shows that CLEARLY, NO 1933 coins were to be released at all from the Mint. So how did Switt get some 20+ coins that were traced to him (and 10 that miraculously appeared in his safe deposit box 70 years later)? It certainly wasn't done legally.
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Now, nothing says that the mandate was followed, but it was absolutely CLEAR.
<< <i>It certainly wasn't done legally. >>
I'd say more along the lines of "it wasn't done officially, with any authorization"
I still see the 1 month gap between Feb. 6 and March 18, for when the coins were to be melted and when the coins were said to be officially melted, suspicious.
I theorize that the the bag of 437, 1933 DE's, were either sitting in line waiting to be melted, or purposely placed to the side, when Izzy Switt contacted someone at the mint about the coins.
Through a likely brief transaction, Izzy was able to exchange either coin-for-coin, or coin-for-coin plus a tip, for the approximately 20, 1933 DE's, for other $20 gold coins.
The mint employee who made the exchange then took Izzy's trade $20 gold coins and placed them in the 1933 Double Eagle bag so as to keep the count of 437 coins the same.
Again, just a theory.
Additionally, the Mint contends that the 1933 double eagles "were stolen". However, a crime report was never filed, and has not been filed as of this date. If something of yours is stolen, and it is recovered, and you want to get it back, the legal way to do so in the U. S. is to file a crime report, and go through the procedures of getting your property returned to you. (point #2)
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
The gold recall had been in full effect for 4 years. If any "swapping" was done it was ILLEGAL. Anything else is semantics.
These coins were deemed to never be released. It was not McCann's prerogative to help out Switt for "tips" without clearly breaking the law! And he did. McCann was a sleazy guy. He was making about $2,000 a year, was a heavy drinker, yet he had a stock account with $20,000 in it in 1936. The guy was always in the take.
Rich...the 1933 Saints had no numismatic value and were specifically banned from release. The "theft" wasn't even suspected until the early '40s when the Treasury Dept. Began to hear of these coins being sold. I'd say that a full press confiscation process by the Secret Service would suffice as a police report. They controlled any breach if the Treasury. They don't have to file a police report.
It's hard to believe something documented that long ago.
Off topic a little : how did E.H.R. Green come to possess 5 1913 Liberty Head Nickels ?
I have more questions about other coins, too. But why are they mysteries ? And why are the Gold Pieces so hotly contested when those ULTRA FREAK nickels aren't ?
The records are impeccable. They counted every coin that was in the mint as evidenced by the records that Alison Frankel accounted for in her book. No one fudged the numbers.
My conclusion is that McCann swapped coins from the open bag and replaced them with others. He in effect, created the rarity and complex "mystery" but let's not call a crime a "coin swap".
Are they really this stupid, or are they destroying the dollar on purpose?
<< <i>I don't think poor Izzy realized he was the only one holding the hot potato. >>
I think the Langbords are hoping the spud cooled down so they can get something out of the deal. Maybe reimbursement on the safe deposit box for storing National Treasures safely for 75 years ?
As S2 has pointed out a zillion times, it comes down to burden of proof. If you as the government have the burden of proof, you have to disprove the above scenario - and only a 24x7 video record from the cashier's office can do it.
If the Langbord's have the burden of proof, your argument becomes very strong.
Are they really this stupid, or are they destroying the dollar on purpose?
Jay - I don't understand the rationale for banning the exchange of one gold coin for another, so I wonder if the above is completely accurate. Can you provide the text of the instructions given to Powell? Also, is there any evidence that the instructions were passed along to McCann?
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
After 50+ years and writing from memory, I recall part of the act allowing numistmatists whose
collections contained gold coins to retain them in their collections.
The only exception to this was that nobody could own more than 5 of any single date and
mint mark of half eagles. No explanation of why but collectors could have in their
collections 5 complete sets of these.
Like I said, that was long ago and while my memory may be a little vague,
this exception was part of the recall when high monetary value was involved for numistmatists.
JT
I collect all 20th century series except gold including those series that ended there.
You said:
<< <i>On Feb. 15, nine days after the meltdown commenced, Izzy Switt, a Philadelphia jeweler and coin dealer with a shady reputation sold a 1933 Double Eagle to James Macallister for $300. >>
Isn't the $300 price evidence of numismatic value back in 1933 when it was otherwise just a piece of gold bullion for most other dated years?
The government was calling in all gold. They did not want the 1933's to be released because the coins were minted while the law was about to take effect. This wasn't a situation where swaps were ok because they were a zero sum game. The Fed wanted all gold. And they knew that by releasing a handful of one date they would create a highly desiredcand rare coin that was not authorized.
It's like setting up a roadblock to stop all enemies but letting a few through who had snuck in the day before. It's wrong. They clearly wanted NO 1933 Saints to ever be released. That's their right, they make the riles and because some were absconded doesn't make them excluded.
Look, I justvwanted to create a clear timeline as to what happened immediately upon enacting the recall. The mint and it's emplyees are not interpreters if the law nor do their friends or henchmen get exclusions. By the dates outlinedcabove it's clear that no new gold coins were to ever be released! That's why they were all locked in the vault under very strict control. This wasn't about food stamps. There was a critically serious threat to the soundness if the US dollar due to the shrinkage if money supply and billins if dollars if gold being expatriates by panicky citizens. Had all the gold left the US the dollar would have collapsed and Woodin knew this when he enacted the Gold Act. There was no funny business allowed and just because a weasel like McCann found a way to "feed" Switt doesn't make it less of a felony.
McCann was a sneeky guy. There are numerous reports in the no t records if him handling coins that hecwasnt authorized to. He fit the mold if the type if guy who would capitalize on a crisis and Switt was just the guy to egg him on to break the law.
If Switt was honest why would he have 10 coins that he KNEW were illegal? After all, be was being visited and investigayed by the Secret Service constantly as the coins be sold were being traced back to him and yet he stashed them anyway. He knrw damn well that he had been tracked diwn and he gave up names!
Switt knew that he was the fix caught in the henhouse and he still kept ten coins that had no trail fir the Feds to find. Let's not be naiive.
By numismatic value the Feds were referring to collections. Not modern crap.
Nothing ever changes, does it?
Now I am not gonna act as the prosecutor here. I am the only one to give a succinct timeline of who knew what and who accessed what. And I'm using my iPhone and it's friggin impossible to post like this.
Carry on.
I just got confused since all the dates were February and March!
Anyway, I think Rich and I's conclusions likely closely resemble what happened.
Double Eagle by Allison Frankel
<< <i>So if Switt went to the mint and visits his friend McCann who tells him I have some of the new 1933 $20 would you be interested in some? Switt says yes and McCann says give me x dollars each. Switt says ok I will take 20 at that price. He pays McCann and leaves with the coins then Switt is guilty of something? >>
Both are guilty. McCann of violation if the Gold Act and abusing his position as a treasury employee and Switt for receiving stolen goods and likely extortion, k owing the kind of guy he was. Both felonies.
<< <i>anyone interested in the full story should read
Double Eagle by Allison Frankel >>
Pay close attention to the acknowledgements!
The UHR that are being sold at a premium to their bullion value?
Is this new modern crap instantly have numismatic value or contraband?
But then is it the subject for a separate thread?
McCann may have sold something as a mint employee he shouldnt have but he didnt steal them.
If no one stole them how can the coins be stolen property?
Its a thin thread but technically Switt received them legally from McCann. It doesn't make it right but then who really knows for sure what really happened. Crap like this has been going on for more than a hundred years at the US Mint where enterprising employees pander to the wants and needs of the wealthy numismatists. How else do you explain some of the odd errors that escape their clutches?
In my opinion, if the eagles are confiscated because they determine they were illegally obtained, then every other odd ball coin should be confiscated as well. Especially those Sacky mules!
The name is LEE!
It that was true why couldn't I go back to the Smithsonian and swap a new $1 coin for a Type-1 $1804? Is that any different ?
You can translate what you want but again, NO 1933 Saints were to be issued to anyone without a special licence according to the new mandate. Switt had no such license and McCann was his accomplice working for "tips". I love that one.
"But he gave me a tip!"
I also said that the law should be interpreted equally over all illegally obtained coins. Gold or otherwise.
If it only applies to the 1933's, then thats just plain stupid as anybody and his brother knows, with absolute certainty, that the five 1913 Liberty nickels WERE obtained without authorization and illegally. And, oh my gosh, these were even proof coins.
The name is LEE!
Past activities to not justify later ones. If domine gets away with murder in 1950 doesthat exempt him from doing another in 1990?
Separate the seed from the chafe here boys. The facts are not disputeble. The 1913v or the 1894-S dime have no bearing on the '33 Saint.
Work with the details as they are. You can't be prejudicial just because it was allowed years before.
Goodnight!
LINK
The Emergency Banking Act gives retroactive effect to Roosevelt’s earlier orders declaring a bank holiday and prohibiting banks from paying out gold. This source—see footnote 15 LINK states that “By separate orders of March 6, 1933, signed by the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasurer of the United States and the Director of the Mint were instructed to make payments in gold in any form during the continuance of the bank holiday only under licenses issued by the Secretary of the Treasury.”
Note that this statement says that the prohibition on paying out gold applied "during the continuance of the bank holiday", which lasted only until March 9. Does anyone have a copy or link to the Secretary of the Treasury’s order? Were there subsequent directives? If so does anyone have a link? Again, Roosevelt’s gold surrender order was not issued until April. Could there have been a regulatory, and thus legal gap, between March 9 and April 5?
CG
<< <i>
<< <i>anyone interested in the full story should read
Double Eagle by Allison Frankel >>
Pay close attention to the acknowledgements!
Read it. And the acknowledgments. You finally got that, what was it, 27-D?
<< <i>Lemme see if I understand this. Coin dealer "X" tells all his employees not to sell me coin "Y". They sell it to me anyway. Are you saying that the coin dealer "X" now has legal recourse against me? >>
Exactly.
I go into a department store and dont see a item I want and ask a employee if they have any and the person goes in the stock room and comes back with the item and I pay for it and leave.
The item happens to have been recalled and was not supposed to be sold to the public now I am guilty of receiving stolen property?
What if the state of Connecticut claims the saints that belonged to the Connecticut library were not supposed to have been sold and the person who did so did it without proper authority. Do you have to give your saint back?
"The 1913v or the 1894-S dime have no bearing on the '33 Saint."
-----
Well, yes and no.
What you're saying is that the government has the right to
selectively prosecute crimes, and I agree with that to an
extent, but...
a) I think the government should have to give a good
reason for why they have decided to prosecute this
example, when they have not gone after other
famous examples such as the ones you quoted.
b) If the government does win this case, what's to
stop them, then, from going after the 1913 "V"
and the 1894-S, and using the 1933 Saint as a
precedent.
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
It's very clear to me.The coins bearing the date 1933 are the property of the people of the government of the United States.The first one that turned up in private hands, the one that the book Illegal Tender is based on,needs to be given back to the people as well. Pay the owner of this piece the several millions that it cost him and be done with it.
Any disposal of these coins could be then done legally by the U.S. government.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
The coins were not supposed to leave the mint.Case closed.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
<< <i>Lemme see if I understand this. Coin dealer "X" tells all his employees not to sell me coin "Y". They sell it to me anyway. Are you saying that the coin dealer "X" now has legal recourse against me? >>
So you fail to see any difference between the Treasury of the US Mint and a coin dealer? That's the craziest tangent so far.
As for anything for the Langbords that's behind reparations for slavery by an ethical mile and that ain't gonna happen either!
You don't get a settlement when the government or anyone recovers stolen goods. The Langbords have a terrible counsel and are idiots for even considering his advice.
But all I'm doing is giving you a timeline so you can see exactly how the Act was put into effect. How anyone can see a legal posession of a 1923 DE is with those crazy X-Ray specs I had as a kid.
<< <i> How anyone can see a legal posession of a 1923 DE is with those crazy X-Ray specs I had as a kid.
If this were to happen, would we see one in SaintGuru's collection???
Inquiring minds want to know.
Recipient of the coveted "You Suck" award, April 2009 for cherrypicking a 1833 CBHD LM-5, and April 2022 for a 1835 LM-12, and again in Aug 2012 for picking off a 1952 FS-902.
<< <i>IZZY SWITT was a notoruis cheat and swindeller-- there is so much to prove this fact!!! Anyone who thinks that these double eagles sat unnoticed in a safe deposit box for all these years and "miracuolusly" found also belives in santa claus and the easter bunny >>
You have to be from Philly!
I knew a dozen Izzy's when I'd hang out downtown. These guys would sell the soles of your shoes when you were running from them.
<< <i>"the fact remains the gold coins that weren't supposed to leave the mint and shouldn't have left the mint and were found in someone's sdb"
The coins were not supposed to leave the mint.Case closed. >>
So if its THAT cut and dried then why doesn't/can't the Guvmint PROVE its case and end it?
MY COINS FOR SALE AT https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/other/bajjerfans-coins-sale/3876
<< <i>I think the fed ought to auction them off and split the proceeds with the Langborns.
If this were to happen, would we in one in SaintGuru's collection???
Inquiring minds want to know. >>
I don't think they would qualify as "Syrup".
After all, every high end collector who wanted one would have one, therefore the market would be instantly saturated.
I have 8 rare-date GEMS now that would be rarer in MS65 than a 1933 Saint!
Ironic, isn't it?