Israel Switt's double eagles

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Israel Switt's double eagles

PHILADELPHIA (Map, News) -
The U.S. government improperly seized a set of extremely rare and valuable "double eagle" coins from a Philadelphia jeweler's descendants and must win a forfeiture case to keep them, a judge ruled this week.

Ownership of the 10 gold coins - worth millions of dollars apiece - may be determined by a jury in a weeks-long forfeiture hearing.

US Mint must seek court OK to keep rare 1933 coins - Examiner.com

Judge says U.S. must return rare coins to Phila. family
By Vernon Clark

Inquirer Staff Writer

A judge in Philadelphia has ruled that the federal government must return 10 extremely rare gold coins to the family of a late Center City jeweler or outline its case for keeping them in a forfeiture filing.
U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis issued the ruling Tuesday in the case of the 10 1933 "double eagle" gold coins, which experts say could fetch millions at auction. The lawyer representing the family said the coins are thought to be the most valuable gold coins in the world.

Judge says U.S. must return rare coins to Phila. family | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/01/2009

Philadelphia was a hub of the gold trade in the early part of the century, with jewelers, coin dealers, and scrap gold traders clustered in offices near the Mint. Israel Switt had begun dealing in gold, mainly scrap gold, as a child. He spent a lot of time at the Mint, getting to know some Mint employees well enough that one official sent his watch to Switt for repairs. By the 1940s Switt had become a wealthy man, though he still did business with some unsavory characters in New York. His own record was spotty: He had been arrested in 1934 at the Philadelphia train station, carrying a suspiciously heavy briefcase. City police officers seized the briefcase and found it filled with old gold coins. Switt was charged with, and eventually convicted of, illegal possession of gold. MacAllister, a more reputable dealer, called Switt "a gold coin bootlegger."

Law.com - The Coin Chase

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James Castagnera: The Battle Over the Double Eagle Gold Coins
Source: Lehighton (PA) Times-News (9-3-05)

Philadelphia jeweler Joan S. Langbord is battling Uncle Sam for possession of 10 of the rarest coins ever minted. The last time such a so-called “Double Eagle” was auctioned off --- in 2002 by Sotheby’s --- the high bidder paid $7.59 million. That sale entered the Guinness Book of World records as the highest price ever paid for a single coin.

The Sotheby’s Double Eagle, and its ten counterparts in what likely will go down in the law books as Langbord v. the U.S. Mint, aren’t just any Double Eagles. They were all minted in Philadelphia in 1933. It’s the year that makes them special… 1933 was when FDR and the New Deal Congress took America off the Gold Standard.

History News Network

[Dean]

That was an interesting story with local ties. Would probably make a good movie.

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Just posting a photo of Israel Switt. I see now that the old links are dead. I will post some new ones.

The rare double eagle gold coins: Was grandpa a thief, or a great collector? - DailyFinance

Illegal tender: Gold, greed, and the ... - Google Books

Barry Berke and the 1933 Double Eagles



The ten Double Eagles at issue in the current Philadelphia case were possessed by Ms Langbord’s father, the late Israel Switt, who dealt in gold at his antique-jewelry store on South 8th Street for some 70 years. Langbord now operates her dad’s business. Way back in 1944 Israel Switt admitted selling nine Eagles (the first probably in 1937), but he was never charged with any crime. All the same, when his daughter and her own son, Roy, found a cache of ten more and reported the discovery to the Philly Mint last September, officials there first asked to authenticate and then confiscated the trove.

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Posted on Thu, Jul. 7, 2011


Coin dealer’s heirs await ruling on rare gold pieces
By Nathan Gorenstein

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Israel Switt, long deceased but once considered a "patriarch" of Philadelphia's Jewelers Row, was an honest, if curmudgeonly, dealer in coins and gold.

Or maybe he was actually an eager participant in a 1930s scheme to sell coveted gold coins stolen from the U.S. Mint.

More than 75 years later, a federal jury will determine the truth. Switt died in 1990 at 95, but for his descendants, the decision will be worth tens of millions of dollars.

At stake is the ownership of ten $20 gold pieces minted in 1933, extraordinarily rare and stunningly valuable Double Eagle coins likely worth at least $7.59 million each.

The government says that "they were stolen, and Israel Switt was somehow involved," and that it is the legal owner of the 10 coins that in 2004 turned up in a safety deposit box.

Switt's elderly daughter, Joan Langbord, and two of her sons hope to convince jurors that a Secret Service investigation into Switt seven decades ago never proved him to be a criminal. No one knows how Switt came by the coins, says attorney Barry H. Berke. So the family is the legal owner.

"The government has a theory. They don't have facts," Berke told the U.S. District Court jurors in his opening statement. Next to him sat Switt's daughter, over 80 but still involved in running I. Switt, the secondhand jewelry store her father founded in 1932. It's still on the 100 block of South Eighth Street.

Coin dealer’s heirs await ruling on rare gold pieces | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/07/2011

[Mr Morley]

Jury: Double-eagle coins belong to government - Philly.com

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July 20, 2011|By Nathan Gorenstein, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER


Ten famous $20 gold pieces that are worth millions to collectors were stolen from the Philadelphia Mint in the 1930s and are legally property of the U.S. Treasury, a federal court jury unanimously decided Wednesday.

After about five hours of deliberation after a seven day trial, the two men and eight women said the government proved that when the rare "Double-Eagle" coins ended up in the hands of the late Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt, they did not get there legitimately.

Jurors accepted the government argument that there was no legal way any of the coins could have been removed from the Mint. All 445,500 coins minted by the government were supposed to have been destroyed by 1937.

U.S. District Court Judge Legrome D. Davis said it was one of the oldest cases before him, but there is at least one final hearing upcoming.

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Government gets gold coins, judge says
By Walter F. Naedele
Posted: Mon, Sep. 10, 2012,
Inquirer Staff Writer
A federal judge has upheld a 2011 jury decision that a Philadelphia family that found 10 purloined gold coins worth at least $7.59 million each cannot keep them.

The coins, "double eagle" $20 gold pieces, were among 445,500 the Philadelphia Mint produced in 1933 that were never circulated because the federal government that year outlawed the possession of gold coins.

"The disputed double eagles were not lawfully removed from the United States Mint and . . . remain the property of the United States," U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis wrote in his Aug. 29 judgment, upholding the decision of a federal court jury in July 2011.

Government gets gold coins, judge says