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Pennsylvania family's fight for rare coins reaches court
By Maryclaire Dale
Associated Press
via Yahoo News
Thursday, July 7, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/pa-familys-fight-rare-coins-reaches-court-23064744...
PHILADELPHIA -- A federal jury in Pennsylvania began hearing a tale Thursday that has long fascinated coin collectors: how a Philadelphia family ended up with a stash of exquisitely rare $20 gold coins from 1933 that the U.S. Mint never circulated.
The 10 coins could bring $80 million or more at auction. But it's not clear that day will ever come.
Federal attorneys told the jury in opening statements that the coins belong to the United States because they were never legally released by the U.S. Mint in the 1930s.
But descendants of the late Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt say the government can't prove they were stolen. Switt, who dealt in scrap gold, might have legally traded for them in his regular dealings with the Mint, their lawyers said.
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Prophecy (TSXV: PCY) Secures Russian Far East Seaport Allocation
and Updates Ulaan Ovoo Mine Production
Company Press Release, June 14, 2011
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Coal Corp. TSX-V: PCY)(OTCQX: PRPCF)(Frankfurt: 1P2) has arranged with the Port of Sovgavan in the State of Khabarovsk, Russia, so the company will have initial access to port allocation of 25,000 tonnes of coal per month starting this month, potentially expandable to 50,000 tonnes per month, representing 300,000 to 600,000 tonnes annually. Prophecy also will be assigned a coal storage area at the port.
This arrangement provides Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo thermal coal mine with immediate access to the Asian seaborne export coal markets. Sovgavan is strategically located on the seaboard of the Russian Far East. The port is privately owned and can accommodate seagoing vessels of up to 160 meters in length, with the depth of loading site of 9.5 meters. The port has loading capacity of 6,000 tonnes per day and direct connections to Trans-Siberian railroads and uncongested Russian state highways.
Securing the port opens Prophecy to a significant number of coal buyers, and the company is placing top priority to conclude rail transport within Russia and coal offtake contracts.
Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo mine commenced production in 2011. So far this year the mine has produced 200,000 tonnes of coal, which are being stockpiled. The average quality is 4,200 kcal/kg NAR with 5 percent ash and 0.5 percent sulphur. Those attributes compare favorably to the coal being purchased by local Russian and Mongolian power plants.
For the complete company statement, please visit:
http://www.prophecycoal.com/news_2011_jun14_Prophecy_Secures_Russian_Sea...
U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis promised jurors selected for the trial that the case would be more fascinating than anything they see on TV, a case replete with history about the gold standard, the Depression, and decades of sleuthing over the rare 1933 Saint-Gaudens "double eagles." The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.
"The government must prove that these coins were stolen three-quarters of a century ago," lawyer Barry Berke, who represents Switt's daughter and grandsons, told the jury.
"They have a theory as to how the coins may have left," he said. "A theory is not good enough to take a citizen's property."
Nearly a half million of the double eagles were struck in Philadelphia in 1933 but then melted into gold bars when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard. A few mysteriously survived.
Switt was twice investigated for illegally possessing gold coins in the 1930s and 1940s. He surrendered many of the coins but was never prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said.
Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, contacted the government in 2004 to say she had found the coins in a bank deposit box a year earlier. She asked the Treasury Department to authenticate them. Instead the government seized them, but the federal judge later ordered officials to defend the forfeiture at trial. The coins are being kept at Fort Knox.
The government argues that the safety box was not rented until six years after Switt died in 1990. Government lawyers say that 10 other "double eagles" that surfaced in the 20th century can all be traced to Switt. Prosecutors believe Switt and a corrupt cashier at the Mint had a hand in the breach.
This is "a crime the government has been waiting to put to rest for 70 years," Romero said in opening statements. "The government simply wants its coins back."
Langbord, now in her 80s, has worked in her father's jewelry store a few blocks from the Mint nearly all her life. The other plaintiffs are her sons, entertainment lawyer Roy Langbord of New York City and David Langbord of Virginia Beach, Va.
A single 1933 double eagle, designed by famed sculptor August Saint-Gaudens, sold at auction in 2002 for $7.59 million, then a record for a coin. The coin had once been owned by King Farouk of Egypt after the U.S. government agreed it could be shipped overseas.
Romero called the 1944 shipment a bureaucratic mistake that prompted the government to allow its later owner, a London coin dealer jailed when he brought it to the United States in 1996, to sell it. The dealer and the U.S. government split the proceeds in a deal negotiated by Berke.
The Langbords had opened their deposit box the day before the London dealer's Farouk coin was seized in 1996, Romero said. The family later offered a similar 50-50 split with the government to settle the case but the government rejected it on grounds the family cannot legitimize their ownership of the coins, given Switt's history.
Switt had told Secret Service agents in 1944 that he had possessed and sold nine 1933 double eagles despite the ban on owning most gold coins after January 1934. All nine were tracked down by the government and destroyed between 1944 and 1952. The Farouk coin is believed to be the tenth from that stash.
The Mint sent a pair of 1933 double eagles to the Smithsonian Institution for its U.S. coin collection.
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Golden Phoenix Shareholder Conference Call To Discuss
Start of Gold Production at Mineral Ridge Gold Project
Company Press Release, June 27, 2011
SPARKS, Nevada -- Golden Phoenix Minerals, Inc. (GPXM) has scheduled its second quarter 2011 shareholder conference call for Tuesday, July 12. Shareholders are invited to participate in the call, will begin at 1 p.m. Pacific and 4 p.m. Eastern time.
Company management will provide updates on accomplishments in the second quarter and explain how the company's royalty mining growth strategy is expected to unfold in the second half of the year.
Topics to be updated include the start of gold production at Mineral Ridge, developments on the Vanderbilt Silver and Coyote Fault Gold projects, the Shining Tree and Peru projects, and drilling plans for 2011. Questions from shareholders will be answered as well.
"Thirteen months after closing the joint venture between Golden Phoenix and Scorpio Gold, the Mineral Ridge property has entered gold production," said Tom Klein, CEO of Golden Phoenix. "Last week both companies completed joint tours of Mineral Ridge. We look forward to providing a complete update on our conference call."
Participation in the shareholder conference call can be arranged by telephone, webcast, or Skype. To participate, dial 952-356-0015 and enter Conference ID 419582#.
For the company's full press release, please visit:
http://goldenphoenix.us/pressreleases/
Golden Phoenix (GPXM) is a U.S. mining company with international exposure to gold, silver, and strategic metals. The company's business model combines project generation and royalty mining that offers the potential for exploration upside, coupled with the backing of production and future royalty streams. View company videos here: http://www.GoldenPhoenix.us
