A jeweller's daughter found ten 1933 gold double eagles in his safe-deposit box, handed them to the Mint to authenticate, and the government kept them

In 1933 the Philadelphia Mint struck 445,500 Saint-Gaudens $20 gold pieces. Roosevelt's orders that spring stopped banks paying out gold, and none were issued. By 1937 all were supposed to have been melted. In 1944 the Secret Service found some in collectors' hands. It concluded they had been stolen by George McCann, the Mint's cashier from 1934 to 1940, and sold by a Philadelphia jeweller, Israel Switt. Switt said he did not remember how he got them. One went to King Farouk of Egypt. The government seized every other coin it could find. Switt died in 1990. In 2003 his daughter, Joan Langbord, and her sons Roy and David opened a family safe-deposit box and found ten 1933 double eagles. In 2002 the one legal specimen, Farouk's, had sold for $7,590,020. On 22 September 2004 Roy Langbord gave the ten coins to the Mint for authentication, reserving all rights. The Mint confirmed them and kept them. In 2011 a jury found for the government. In 2015 a Third Circuit panel ordered the coins returned. On 1 August 2016 the full court reversed, 9 to 3, holding that the coins had never lawfully left the Mint and remained United States property. On 17 April 2017 the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The ten coins remain government property.