Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Third Circuit Awards Valuable 1933 Gold Coins to Government

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has awarded valuable 1933 $20 Gold coins to the Government.  A panel of the same court had previously reversed a jury decision for the government because of delays in bringing the matter before a court.  Steve Roach's article about the decision can be found here.  The Court's opinion can be found here.

2 comments:

Paul Barford said...

Dealer comment approved for publication on CPO: http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2016/07/mass-destruction-or-mass-deception.html?showComment=1470004149943#c3652698857652744667

"let me make it clear that in the USA, modern coins (including the colonial coinage and tokens of what is now the USA) are considered to be private personal property [...] in which the USA has no sovereign right of ownership".

Blog owner response: "Dave, you are correct of course".

Seems not.

Cultural Property Observer said...

I'll allow you to post as I would like to respond. In this case, the jury found that the government never officially released the coins into circulation so the coins must be "stolen." Once released, coins have been generally treated as private property. One exception was the call in of gold coins by the Roosevelt Administration, but it's my understanding there was an exemption for collectors' coins. Keep in mind at the time the 1933 Double Eagle was current coinage and the government treated it as such.