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Author: David Tripp Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439100292 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 1030
Book Description
It's the most valuable ounce of gold in the world, the celebrated, the fabled, the infamous 1933 double eagle, illegal to own and coveted all the more, sought with passion by men of wealth and with steely persistence by the United States government for more than a half century—it shouldn't even exist but it does, and its astonishing, true adventures read like "a composite of The Lord of the Rings and The Maltese Falcon" (The New York Times). In 1905, at the height of the exuberant Gilded Age, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned America's greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens—as he battled in vain for his life—to create what became America's most beautiful coin. In 1933 the hopes of America dimmed in the darkness of the Great Depression, and gold—the nation's lifeblood—hemorrhaged from the financial system. As the economy teetered on the brink of total collapse, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his first act as president, assumed wartime powers while the nation was at peace and in a "swift, staccato action" unprecedented in United States history recalled all gold and banned its private ownership. But the United States Mint continued, quite legally, to strike nearly a half million 1933 double eagles that were never issued and were deemed illegal to own. In 1937, along with countless millions of other gold coins, they were melted down into faceless gold bars and sent to Fort Knox. The government thought they had destroyed them all—but they were wrong. A few escaped, purloined in a crime—an inside job—that wasn't discovered until 1944. Then, the fugitive 1933 double eagles became the focus of a relentless Secret Service investigation spearheaded by the man who had put away Al Capone. All the coins that could be found were seized and destroyed. But one was beyond their reach, in a king's collection in Egypt, where it survived a world war, a revolution, and a coup, only to be lost again. In 1996, more than forty years later, in a dramatic sting operation set up by a Secret Service informant at the Waldorf-Astoria, an English and an American coin dealer were arrested with a 1933 double eagle which, after years of litigation, was sold in July 2002 to an anonymous buyer for more than $7.5 million in a record-shattering auction. But was it the only one? The lost one? Illegal Tender, revealing information available for the first time, tells a riveting tale of American history, liberally spiced with greed, intrigue, deception, and controversy as it follows the once secret odyssey of this fabulous golden object through the decades. With its cast of kings, presidents, government agents, shadowy dealers, and crooks, Illegal Tender will keep readers guessing about this incomparable disk of gold—the coin that shouldn't be and almost wasn't—until the very end.
Author: David Tripp Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439100292 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 1030
Book Description
It's the most valuable ounce of gold in the world, the celebrated, the fabled, the infamous 1933 double eagle, illegal to own and coveted all the more, sought with passion by men of wealth and with steely persistence by the United States government for more than a half century—it shouldn't even exist but it does, and its astonishing, true adventures read like "a composite of The Lord of the Rings and The Maltese Falcon" (The New York Times). In 1905, at the height of the exuberant Gilded Age, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned America's greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens—as he battled in vain for his life—to create what became America's most beautiful coin. In 1933 the hopes of America dimmed in the darkness of the Great Depression, and gold—the nation's lifeblood—hemorrhaged from the financial system. As the economy teetered on the brink of total collapse, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his first act as president, assumed wartime powers while the nation was at peace and in a "swift, staccato action" unprecedented in United States history recalled all gold and banned its private ownership. But the United States Mint continued, quite legally, to strike nearly a half million 1933 double eagles that were never issued and were deemed illegal to own. In 1937, along with countless millions of other gold coins, they were melted down into faceless gold bars and sent to Fort Knox. The government thought they had destroyed them all—but they were wrong. A few escaped, purloined in a crime—an inside job—that wasn't discovered until 1944. Then, the fugitive 1933 double eagles became the focus of a relentless Secret Service investigation spearheaded by the man who had put away Al Capone. All the coins that could be found were seized and destroyed. But one was beyond their reach, in a king's collection in Egypt, where it survived a world war, a revolution, and a coup, only to be lost again. In 1996, more than forty years later, in a dramatic sting operation set up by a Secret Service informant at the Waldorf-Astoria, an English and an American coin dealer were arrested with a 1933 double eagle which, after years of litigation, was sold in July 2002 to an anonymous buyer for more than $7.5 million in a record-shattering auction. But was it the only one? The lost one? Illegal Tender, revealing information available for the first time, tells a riveting tale of American history, liberally spiced with greed, intrigue, deception, and controversy as it follows the once secret odyssey of this fabulous golden object through the decades. With its cast of kings, presidents, government agents, shadowy dealers, and crooks, Illegal Tender will keep readers guessing about this incomparable disk of gold—the coin that shouldn't be and almost wasn't—until the very end.
Author: JOHNSON DAVID R Publisher: Smithsonian Books (DC) ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
The federal government was compelled to respond to this growing illegal enterprise, which represented a threat to both the national economy and the federal government's authority to control the currency. In 1865 it created the Secret Service - an agency that over the next forty years, would eradicate counterfeiting as a major urban crime.
Author: Stephen Mihm Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674041011 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 470
Book Description
Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.
Author: Willard M. Oliver Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1442265043 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 343
Book Description
Most people believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation began under J. Edgar Hoover in the 1920s or 1930s. Many also naturally assume it was developed for the express purpose of fighting crime. However, the reality is very different. The reality is it began years earlier, in 1908, under President Theodore Roosevelt. In The Birth of the FBI: Teddy Roosevelt, the Secret Service, and the Fight Over America's Premier Law Enforcement Agency, Willard Oliver details the political fight that led to the birth of America’s premier law enforcement agency. Roosevelt was concerned about conservation and one issue he wanted enforced were the fraudulent land deals being perpetrated by many people, including some members of Congress. When he began using the Secret Service to investigate these crimes, Congress blocked him from doing so. The end result of this political spat was Roosevelt’s creation of the FBI, which heightened the political row between the two branches of government in the final year of Roosevelt’s presidency. The truth of the matter is, the premier law enforcement agency in the United States was actually created because of a political fight between the executive and legislative branches of government. The Birth of the FBI reveals the true story behind the birth of the FBI and provides some useful insight into an important part of our American history.