In 1933, the federal government issued a rare golden Double Eagle $20 coin. Only 450,000 of these coins were minted before the government abruptly called for a halt to production owing to pressures from the Great Depression. Most of these coins were rounded up, melted down, or otherwise destroyed. A very few of the coins survived this initial destruction process, however. It has been said that the one of the government officials in charge of the Mint raided the storehouse of coins and secretly distributed them to a collector in Pittsburgh, who then secretly sold them at auction. The federal government, unhappy with the process, aggressively sought to rein in these illegal distributions. Somehow amidst this confusion, the Egyptian King Farouk, known as an international playboy, wound up with one of the Double Eagles. Although the U.S. government had accidentally licensed the export of this Double Eagle, the government now wanted it back. King Farouk wanted nothing of the sort. When he died, his estate was liquidated by the Sotheby's auction company, and the missing Double Eagle once again disappeared from record--that is, until the Secret Service busted a man named Stephen Fenton for illegally acquiring the coin. Fenton survived this prosecution and actually traded the newly monetized coin for millions. It was returned to the U.S. government and then stored in the World Trade Center in the south end of New York City. In July 2001, the Double Eagle was removed from storage at the World Trade Center, only months before renegade planes smashed into the towers, destroying the buildings and the vaults contained therein. |
