In 1933, the United States minted nearly half a million gold coins that the public was never allowed to use. Government orders mandated the immediate destruction of the entire batch, but a small handful of these heavy gold pieces quietly vanished from the minting facility.
Decades of secret international sales, royal acquisitions, and federal sting operations followed. One of these stolen items eventually broke records by selling at auction for nearly 19 million dollars.
The Great Depression Gold Recall
In 1933, the United States Mint produced 445,500 Saint-Gaudens double eagle coins with a face value of 20 dollars. Each coin weighed 33.431 grams (1.179 ounces), measured 34.1 millimeters (1.34 inches) in diameter, and was 2.41 millimeters (0.095 inches) thick.
To combat the banking crisis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which required citizens to turn in their gold to the federal government. Following the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, the government melted down almost the entire 1933 production run. Only two specimens were officially preserved for the United States National Numismatic Collection.
A Philadelphia Theft and Royal Export
Unbeknownst to federal authorities, at least twenty of the coins were smuggled out of the Philadelphia Mint. A local jeweler named Israel Switt distributed these stolen pieces to private collectors. In 1944, a Texas dealer sold one of these smuggled coins to King Farouk of Egypt. In a bureaucratic error, the United States Treasury Department mistakenly granted an export license for the item just days before discovering the wider theft.
The Secret Service launched an investigation and tracked down nine other coins within the United States, destroying them. The Egyptian coin disappeared completely when King Farouk was deposed in 1952.
The Waldorf Astoria Sting Operation
After more than forty years of obscurity, the Farouk coin resurfaced in 1996. British coin dealer Stephen Fenton attempted to sell it in New York, which led to his arrest in a Secret Service sting operation at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The resulting legal battle ended in a 2001 settlement where ownership reverted to the United States government, but the item was permitted to be sold at a public auction.
Millions of Dollars at Auction
In 2002, the item sold to an anonymous bidder for 7.59 million dollars, splitting the proceeds between the federal government and Fenton. The buyer was later identified as collector Stuart Weitzman. In June 2021, Weitzman sold it through a Sotheby’s auction for 18.87 million dollars, making it the most expensive coin ever sold.
Meanwhile, ten additional specimens were discovered in 2004 in the possession of Israel Switt’s descendants. Following a lengthy court battle, the federal appeals court ruled in 2016 that these ten coins are the property of the United States government, and they remain secured in the Fort Knox Bullion Depository.