The Long Lost Double Eagles

A lot of controversy was created over a new found treasure: was it stolen or not? An American family discovered a treasure that had been lying around their house for years. Their grandfather seems to have bought the 9 Double Eagle gold coins just before Roosevelt decided to forbid people from owning large amounts of gold coins or gold bullion.

The Double Eagles are considered to be very valuable because they were minted back in 1933.The cause of the problems is that the coins minted in that year were never officially released by the government. Very few of them managed to make their way out of the federal vault. Only one coin of this kind has ever been sold in an auction. The amount of money it was sold at reached 7.6 million dollars.

The family took the coins to the United States Mint in order to be authenticated in 2004 but they had no clue what they were about to trigger. The Mint told them that the coins are genuine and then refused to give them back. What they claimed was that the grandfather had stolen the coins from the Mint back in 1930s.

After hearing the unpleasant news the family decided to go to court and there they have actually won an important ruling. The judge that presided the case ruled that they should be given the Double Eagles back or the Mint should come with hard evidence that the coins were stolen.

President Franklin Roosevelt decided to ban people from owning large amounts of gold coins or gold bullion but before this in 1933 almost half-million Double Eagles were minted. The decision was to melt all of these coins but somehow two of them managed to end-up at the Smithsonian Institute. Apparently these were not the only ones that escaped the meltdown

The police are now trying to figure out whether the jeweler was the legal owner of the coins or if he indeed had stolen them. Investing in gold or purchasing gold coins is no longer an issue these days. Economists advise us to diversify our portfolio and start investing in the precious metal.

Learn from professionals how to buy gold bullion in times of recession.