Sometimes Grandpa Leaves You Something, Sometime the US Government Takes it From You
Just more offerings in the USA that the Government will do what it pleases and take anything they deem theirs from its citizens.
Judge Legrome Davis of the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of the US Mint that a seizure of 10 rare 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle gold coins were rightfully seized from the Langbords family.
The 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle coin at one time was valued at only $20 a coin but when the US abandoned the gold standard, 445,500 double eagles were melted down by the Philadelphia Mint. Legend has it a man named Israel Switt, who worked as a cashier at the Mint, took some of these coins out of circulation for melting and sold them off to a local coin dealer in the area around Philadelphia.
Joan Langbord, who happens to be Switt's daughter, happened across a safe of her fathers in 2003 and with the help of her two sons drilled into the safe to find 10 of these rare coins. To find out the value of this hopeful treasure, Langbord saught an evaluation of value and authentication from the Philadelphia Mint. The government then seized the coins with no compensation on their basis that these coins were unlawfully and stolen from them several decades back.
The family sued but a jury ruled in the Feds favor and upon numerous appeals exhausted the Judge last week ruled once again in favor for the seizure and Mint.
So I guess statutes of limitations no longer apply even if this was a theft? My humble less than superior knowledge of the law here may sound wrong but when does theft carry a limitless statute of limitation like a murder case in the USA? I must be living in a strange parallel universe here because to me this seems a bit siding with the Government to feed the system a bit more vs ruling in favor of the laws in place. If this was decades ago and this man did steal this, it should be kind of past a ruling of unlawful claim to property, especially property the Mint was going to melt down anyway.
I don't know just doesn't feel right in my opinion, but maybe I am still a child thinking "Finder's Keepers" still applies.
Guess the government can take your property in any fashion they want, laws no longer apply here. But I tell you this, you rob me of a few grand and keep away from the law, see how much they won't do anything to you with a little time passing, let alone a few decades. Man this stuff burns me lol.
I just report it