Gold coin fetches record sum

One of the world’s rarest and most sought-after gold collector coins, the 1933 Double Eagle, was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in New York, N.Y., for US$7.6 million, a new record.

The bidding, in US$100,000 increments, took less than eight minutes. The US$7.6-million bid eclipsed the US$4.1-million paid in 1999 for the Childs specimen of Class I 1804 Draped Bust silver dollar.

The Double Eagle was minted in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression but never circulated, as President Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard monetary system two years later. All 445,500 coins were put into storage and ordered to be melted down in 1937, but it was not until the 1940s that it was discovered that 10 coins had not been returned. Nine of those were subsequently recovered, but one ended up in the collection of King Farouk of Egypt. It surfaced publicly in 1996, when it was confiscated by U.S. authorities.

After protracted legal wrangling, it was agreed that the coin could be sold at an auction, with the proceeds split between the dealer and the U.S. Mint.