Whipped Cream Difficulties

The NYT offers up an update in the case of ten 1933 $20 gold pieces confiscated by the U.S. Mint; in brief, the government has been ordered either to give the coins back, or provide proof the coins were stolen.

I’ve been interested in these coins since reading David Tripp’s book Illegal Tender. The short version of this story is that the 1933 $20 gold piece was never officially issued; FDR took the country off the gold standard after the coins were produced, but (supposedly) before the U.S. Mint distributed any of them. Some of these coins made it out to the public, but the government claimed they were stolen property and, until 2002, confiscated and destroyed all of the ones that turned up. For complicated reasons (outlined in Tripp’s book) the government allowed the sale of one coin at auction in 2002 for $7.6 million.

Tripp’s book makes it very clear (in my opinion) that the government believed all of these coins that made it out of the Mint were stolen property, that the government was allowing the 2002 sale as a one-off deal, and that any future coins that showed up would also be confiscated and destroyed.  I find it very difficult to believe that Mr. Langbord and his family were not aware of this, and I have a lot of trouble siding with them.

(As a side note, I haven’t read Alison Frankel’s Double Eagle, though I very much want to. Tripp’s book is okay, but I think it suffers some from his lack of experience in writing long form narrative.)