Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World's Most Valuable Coin,
by Alison Frankel
Legal writer Alison Frankel penned a page turner packed with high drama and
it's a valentine to the beautiful twenty dollar gold piece. The coin, first
minted in the mid 1800s, was known as the Liberty. Teddy Roosevelt
commissioned world renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to execute a new
design -- something that would reflect America's global might at the dawn of
the 2oth century. Bully. It's new "name" would be Double Eagle. Thirty years
on, amid the depression and attendant banking crises, FDR recalled all gold
and ordered all the unissued 1933 Double Eagles to be melted down. Two
numismatic specimens were to be spared. But quite a few more got away.
Saint-Gaudens elegant work, a panoply of unscrupulous dealers finders and
collectors, the missing coin retrieval missions, the highest of the high
profile coins that made it into Egyptian King Farouk's cache. These are just
a few of Double Eagle's dramaic parts. The tale continues with a
Secret Service sting at the Waldorf-Astoria and Sotheby's $7,500,000 auction
of the world's most valuable coin in 2002. This last might or might not have
been the last chapter. Double Eagle. Great story, well told.
-Susan
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