In the August 25 Washington Post, the top of the Federal Page caught my eye. “U.S. Mint Confiscates 10 Rare 1933 Gold Coins” it read, dateline Philadelphia. Along with the story was a photograph of the obverse and reverse (called “front” and “back” by those down-home folks at the Post) of the famous 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle.
There’s no question that the St.-Gaudens double eagle is one of the most beautiful coins ever made. As art, it is classic Americana. And the 1933 is clearly one of the rarest coins of all. I wish I had one–not the 1933, just any St. Gaudens double eagle. I was reading along when a very familiar name caught my eye. It seems that Joan Langbond found the ten coins in the estate of her father, Israel Switt, and asked the mint to authenticate them–whereupon it confiscated them instead.
Now, you don’t have to have hung around Philadelphia much to know–though it helps–that Israel Switt’s jewelry store down at 9th and Sansom was one of the most famous, most wonderful, most curious commercial establishments of the 20th century. Mr. Switt bought mainly estates–jewelry, silver and gold items, curios, stuff like that. I first met him back, I guess, about 1978 or 1979. He was already an old man, but an old man with a fresh glint in his eye, and an appetite for good conversation. He usually sat on a stool in the front of the shop, near the cash register, wearing suspenders and Ben Franklin glasses.
I soon learned that you didn’t go into Mr. Switt’s establishment and just buy something. At least I couldn’t. Mr. Switt didn’t need the money, it seemed, so he would just refuse to engage me when I asked after a certain item or category of merchandize. Instead, he would ask a question, or tell a story, or in some other way change the subject. Next thing I knew, I was deep in conversation with Israel Switt, who never failed to teach me something or other, having nearly forgot why I came into the shop to begin with. There was something equal parts sweet yet challenging about this man, and from that I concluded that the longer and more sincerely someone spoke to Mr. Switt, the better the deal he or she eventually got on whatever it was HE decided to sell them. And that’s how it really was: He got to know you some, and he decided what you needed and how much you’d pay for it. And it wasn’t like he was trying to get the better of me. He just knew better than me what I really needed for the purpose at hand.
Israel Switt was also my neighbor for some years; I lived at 48th & Larchwood, and he, just through the alley where my kids used to play, on Osage Avenue–in a nice but modest row home.
A nice but modest row home, and here he was with ten coins worth, even in the 1980s, well more than $12-15 million. He could have lived anywhere he wanted, and he DID live where he wanted: in West Philly. I think he found it more interesting than some sterile suburb full of McMansions.
The 1933 St.-Gaudens double eagle was never released. FDR took us off the gold standard and all the prepared coins save two were ordered melted for bullion. The two went to the Smithsonian for posterity. Somehow, Mr. Switt got ten of them from some friend at the mint in 1936, before the melting took place. On account of this, the government claims that Mr. Switt obtained the coins by foul means: hence the confiscation. The family points out, however, that the government cannot prove any such thing, and plans to sue to get the coins back, or at least some fair valuation for them if not the coins themselves.
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know the ins-and-outs of such cases. Still, it seems wrong to me that the U.S. government should confiscate personal property in the absence of any evidence that the owner broke any law. Why isn’t this unlawful search and seizure?