The Most Valuable Coin in the World

The 1933 Double Eagle coin, which has a face value of $20, is actually valued at $7.6 million. The vintage gold coin was one of the last minted by the U.S. government, escaping the fate of other gold coins that were melted down into bullion in 1937.

The coin that sits in the lobby of the U.S. Federal Reserve is not the only remaining Double Eagle coin. Specialists think that they have a ballpark of how many to look for, but with attempts to locate the coins spanning 70 years, 13 Presidential administrations, and 12 different directors, the chances of finding these coins is quite an extravagant investigation. Not to mention, the scenarios tied to finding the coins sound like a movie—spanning three continents, informants, royalty and even a sting setup in NYC’s famed Waldorf.

One has to wonder…why is the government so motivated to recover these coins? Yes, they are made of gold, but as the investigation nears almost 100 years of searching, the persistence behind the search is a mystery in itself. The coins were minted at a point when the gold supply was nearly down to nothing, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that all Americans must trade gold coins for paper currency, in an attempt to rebuild the Federal Reserve supply.

To read more about the mystery of the Double Eagle, check out a recent article on MSNBC.