If you had $7.6 million to spend, would you spend it on a coin? Well, that's exactly what some anonymous collector did at a Sotheby's auction in July of 2002. It took the bidders less than nine minutes to determine the price of the world's most valuable coin - the 1933 Saint-Gaudens Gold Double Eagle.
You might be wondering how a coin with a face value of $20 could become so valuable. Rarity is one factor; although at least 22 specimens have left the mint, only one remains in private hands. But even this isn't enough to make a coin so incredibly desirable that someone would pay such a price for it. After all, there are other coins of which only one specimen is known.
So what's the secret of the 1933 Double Eagle that makes it the world's most valuable coin? Take some intrigue, mix in some royal ownership, add a large dollop of general consensus that the Saint-Gaudens $20 gold pieces are the most beautiful coins ever made by the USA, blend in Secret Service investigations and seizures, sprinkle with lawsuits, and top it all off with a hapless heiress, and you have the recipe for a multi-million dollar coin! Read the fantastic story of the World's Most Valuable Coin.
More Profiles of Famous Coins:
- Obscenity or Art? The Bare-Breasted Liberty Quarter Controversy
- The Curious Story Behind the 1895 Morgan Dollar
- EID MAR Denarius - Ancient Coin Commemorates the Murder of Caesar
Photo of the 1933 Double Eagle courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons
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