$20 Gold Coin Sells for $19 Million

Gary Alexander is one of my favorite financial writers. We used to work together years ago.

Here’s Gary’s take on some U.S. currency history:

The Grand Experiment began on July 22, 1776, when the Continental Congress issued $2 million in new bills, known as Continentals, which bore the inscription, “The United Colonies.” Unbacked by gold or any other hard asset, the bills led to almost immediate inflation. By 1778, it took $6 in paper to buy what $1 bought in 1776. By November 1779, it took $40 to buy what $1 bought in 1776. As General George Washington said at the time, “A wagonload of currency will hardly purchase a wagonload of provisions.”

The Continental failed and left the young nation with a hefty war debt. Chastened by the experience of that Continental currency, the U.S. Constitution prescribed: “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts,” and America drafted a series of gold and silver coins in the 1790s, resisting the urge to issue new paper notes until the Civil War, with Lincoln’s “Greenbacks.”

The U.S. didn’t abandon gold in one step. In June 1933, America officially went off the gold standard for domestic convertibility, but nations still traded in gold. The newly minted 1933 $20 gold Double Eagles were almost all confiscated, melted, and destroyed but one remains. On June 7, it sold for a record $18.9 million. Once owned by Egypt’s King Farouk, it was later seized in a Secret Service sting. With a face value of $20, this one-of-a-kind collectible drew nearly $19 million at auction. Beat that price, Bitcoin!

Here’s the whole thing.

Posted by on June 22nd, 2021 at 9:41 pm


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