For the first time, a 1933 double eagle will be exhibited in UK. The famous USA 1933 gold double eagle will go on display in London next month. The exhibition is part of a European tour arranged by the Samlerhuset Group, parent company of the London Mint Office, with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, based in Washington DC. The free exhibition will be open to the public at Goldsmiths' Hall in Foster Lane, London, between 10am and 4pm on Saturday, March 3 and Sunday, March 4. The coin has been the world most expensive coin for so many years before a new most expensive coin take over its position; 1794 silver dollar coin.
1933 double eagle UK Exhibition
Place: Goldsmiths' Hall in Foster Lane, London.
Date: 3 and 4 March 2012
Time: 10am and 4pm
Admission: Free.
1933 Double eagles were minted on 15 March 1933, a week after President Franklin Roosevelt, ordered the US Treasury to halt the release of all gold. In 1937, all the coins were destroyed by the Treasury and melt them into gold bars. Only two of the coins survived as part of the official US coin collection at the Smithsonian Institution. But 10 of the coins surfaced in the 1940's. Over the next decade, the US Secret Service tracked down nine of them and destroyed them. All of the owners said they bought them from Switt, or from someone who bought them from Switt, according to court documents. Switt was twice investigated for illegally possessing gold coins in the 1930s and 1940s. He surrendered many of the coins, but was never prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said to Associated Press.
The tenth 1933 Double Eagle, became the personal collection of Egypt's King Farouk in the 1940's, he received permission from the US government to ship the coin overseas. In 1954, the coin turned up at an auction in Cairo, during a sale of the deposed king's coin collection. Upon learning of the 1933 Double Eagle, the US government requested that it not be sold. The coin disappeared, only to turn up in the 1990s in the possession of British collector Stephen Fenton, who was arrested in New York City after trying to sell the coin to undercover US Secret Service agents. The government and Fenton later consented to its sale at auction on 30 july 2002 for $7.59 million and split the proceeds with the owner.
In 2004, Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, told officials at the US Treasury that she had found 10 more 1933 Double Eagles in a safe deposit box.She asked the Treasury Department to authenticate them. The government instead seized them, but the federal judge later ordered officials to defend the forfeiture at trial. The coins are being kept at Fort Knox. The government argues that the safety box was not rented until six years after Switt died in 1990. Government lawyers say that 10 other "double eagles" that surfaced in the 20th century can all be traced to Switt. Prosecutors believe Switt and a corrupt cashier at the Mint had a hand in the breach. The Langbords had opened their deposit box the day before the London dealer's Farouk coin was seized in 1996, Romero said. The family later offered a similar 50-50 split with the U.S. to settle the case, but the government rejected it on grounds the family cannot legitimize their ownership of the coins, given Switt's history.
