The World's Most Valuable Coin - 1933 SAINT-GAUDENS DOUBLE EAGLE

How can a coin that was intended for circulation and had a mintage of 445,500 coins be the world’s most expensive gold coin? It is a story about timing, a gift, a theft, and our nation’s economic history.

- MIKE GAROFALO

In 1933, America was battling the effects of the Great Depression. The stock market had crashed in 1929, which financially ruined thousands of investors and caused billions of dollars to vanish. Unemployment topped 20% in 1933 and soup kitchens were commonplace. There were no financial safety nets then. So there was no FDIC to insure bank deposits and there were no unemployment programs or Social Security to protect Americans.

HERBERT HOOVER, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND THE BAN OF GOLD OWNERSHIP

Herbert Hoover was President of the United States during a number of these events and when he ran for reelection in 1932, America desperately wanted a change. Franklin D. Roosevelt was overwhelmingly elected and he began to implement programs to help out-of-work Americans.

One of Roosevelt’s earliest plans was for America to stop using gold to back the value of the U.S. dollar. Roosevelt explained: “The free circulation of gold coins is unnecessary, leads to hoarding and tends to a possible weakening of national financial structures in times of emergency.” The U.S. dollar did drop, initially against European-gold-based currencies. Since no gold coins were circulating, no one could hoard these coins and weaken the value of the dollar.

Now that the United States Mint would no longer be striking gold coins, coins that were in circulation were being recalled. The coins that were turned in by citizens were melted and turned into gold bars.

The 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles were also supposed to be melted, but some 22 coins escaped the crucible. Two were ordered to be saved by the government and placed in the National Coin Collection at the Smithsonian Institution and 20 somehow were stolen. Since these 1933 Saint-Gaudens coins were never officially authorized, it was now, ostensibly, illegal to own one.

TRACING 1933 SAINT-GAUDENS DOUBLE EAGLES