Art News

Pennsylvania Family Fights United States Treasury Over Rare 1933 Gold Coins

PHILADELPHIA, PA (AP).- A jeweler’s heirs with a cache of rare $20 gold coins will fight for the right to keep them when they square off in court this week against the U.S. Treasury. Treasury officials charge that the never-circulated “double eagles” were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1933. They could be worth $80 million or more, given that one sold for nearly $7.6 million in 2002. The coins come from a batch that were struck but melted down after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard in 1933. Two were preserved for the Smithsonian Institute. But a handful more mysteriously got out. The daughter and grandsons of Israel Switt, a jeweler and scrap metal dealer on nearby Jeweler’s Row, say they discovered 10 of them in his bank deposit box in 2003. Joan Langbord of Philadelphia and her sons went to the U.S. Treasury to authenticate th