1933 Double Eagle Gold Coin

The NY Times ran an interesting article on the rare 1933 gold double eagle coin.  It was being moved from a vautl at the NY Federal Reserve Bank to the NY Historical Society where it will be placed on view.  The owner of the coin is not known, but wants the coin to be seen and enjoyed by the public. It last sold at Sotheby's in 2002 for $7,590,020.

Fellow International Society of Appraisers member Steve Roach, ISA AM and editor of Coin World commented about the coin for the article. Stating in part “It’s a unique combination of beauty, desirability and mystery. It’s so rare, but it has such an interesting back story.”

The NY Times reports on the double eagle

Some coin experts consider the 1933 double eagle the Mona Lisa of coins. Steve Roach, the editor of Coin World magazine, suggested a slightly different description: “The Hope Diamond of American numismatics.” It is the only 1933 double eagle that someone can own legally. On one side of the coin is Liberty, “her hair whipping in the wind,” in the words of David Tripp, who wrote about the double eagle. On the other side is an eagle patterned after the image on pennies issued a couple of years before the Civil War.

“There are few coins that can capture the public’s imagination in the way that this coin can,” Mr. Roach said. “It’s a unique combination of beauty, desirability and mystery. It’s so rare, but it has such an interesting back story.”

One element of the back story, he said, is the current owner, who has never been identified. “It’s one of the wonderful mysteries of coin collecting, who bought that coin,” Mr. Roach said.

Mr. Redden described the owner as “a fabulous collector who was completely captivated by the story of the coin,” but not a coin collector.

“After he bought it, he said, ‘I don’t want to take it home, I don’t want to put it in a bank vault — what should I do with it?’” Mr. Redden recalled. “I said the Fed is planning a show. It was the star of that show for years.”

But last fall, the Fed sent the coin off to the vault. “The owner is interested in letting the public see it,” Mr. Redden said. The historical society beckoned, and the two security men followed Mr. Redden from the S.U.V. through the society’s back door. They watched as exhibition designers polished its case and tested the alarm, just in case.

“I don’t know what the threat level on this particular item is, because if they steal it, who’s going to buy it?” one of the security men, Louis Guiliano, said. “If you can’t fence the coin, it’s not valuable. It’s only valuable if you can get someone to pay you.”

Source: NY Times