The Professional Numismatists Guild has issued a brief statement regarding the confiscation of ten 1933 Double Eagles. Read it online here:


PNG News Release on 1933 Double Eagles

http://www.pngdealers.com/public/pressrele....cfm?article=28

-donn-

The beginning of "communist" coin regime... *sigh*

The '33 double eagle was lawfully issued for 2 days prior to Roosevelt's recall. If the govenment cannot prove that any particular example was not part of this issue then it should allow private ownership under the basis of legal burden of proof.

The same applies to the patterns and other coins mentioned in the press release with the glaring exception of the 1913 nickels. These are stolen property and SHOULD BE liable to confiscation by the feds with no compensation to the current holders.

Ummm, aren't conservatives suppose to be about LESS government intrusion into the private lives and business doings of our citizens?
Aren't conservatives running our country?
Am I missing something?

I disagree. The 1913 nickels belong to the bearers just as a common 1922 Peace dollar does. The Constitution contains no grant of power to any branch of government which would allow the government ownership of money minted by the US Mint. or by the BPE.

Money is portable property, no matter who issues it. There's a word for people who have no property rights: slaves. If the feds can take the 1913 V nickels, they can take your bust halves; all of them. If there was a crime committed by the mint employees who struck the 1913 nickels, liability for that crime ended with the deaths of the men involved. The nickels are the property of the current owners. To say optherwise is to declare all money issued by the US government property of that government.

You are completely right when you call money "portable property". That is the basis of my post. Rightful title can NEVER be granted to stolen property. Although the thief's liability for the crime may have ended with his death title still goes back to the original owner...in this case the U.S. government.

I think that is the stance of the Government too. They do not consider it a 'confiscation' but a 'recovery'. Makes sense to me for coins that were illegally made or stolen. If I knock off Forth Knox one day and am hit by a bus the next day, I don't think my heirs will get the loot as inheritance.

The government should recover all the 1913 Liberty Nickels and then release them into circulation.

I think it is much ado about nothing and the PNG is getting carried away.

Sure, anything is possible but does the govt. really want to spend the time
and effort to chase down "rogue" coins around the country? I can't believe
this would be any kind of a priorty matter. The notority of the 1933 double
eagles is like in a class by itself and I don't think they had much choice considering
the "deal" that was made for the one sold legally a few years ago.

Ah, but there was no original title involved since the USG has no property rights in regard to coinage. Money is portable property for which no title is required. Possession is all the proof of ownership required, but the property right only applies to a human being, not to a human created entity such as a government. Once the coins were struck, they became simple portable property worth 1/20 of a dollar each. The employees who performed the unauthorized striking of the coins could have been prosecuted for that crime, but possession of the coins by anyone else cannot properly be criminalized without granting ownership of the coinage to the federal government.

The federal government is granted (in the US Constitution by virtue of ratification by the states acting as agents of the citizens of the states) sole authority to mint money, but there is no grant of authority to any branch of government for ownership of the money minted by the department of treasury. People own the money they possess, not the government which issued that money. The way our Constitution works, a power must be specifically granted in the articles of the Constitution for it to be a power, there is to be no assumption of power by legislation or by implication.

According to our model of government, government is created by the governed in order to secure the rights of the governed, but govwernment has duties rather than rights. Limited authority is granted to government for the purpose of permitting government employees to carry out their duties, but no rights whatsoever are invested in government. Ownership of private property is an inalienable human right, not a government power.

If the federal government owns the five 1913 V nickels, they also own every single one of your US coins.

<If the federal government owns the five 1913 V nickels, they also own every single one of your US coins. >

They do own every one of the coins they mint--at least the material contained within--until such point as it is lawfully issued to the public.

Jim

Since the government doesn't own the money, it's a confiscation, pure and simple. The logic used by the feds in seizing the double eagles is exactly that which you're defending in the case of the 1913 V nickels: that the treasury department owns anything produced by the mint or the BoPE. They say that they own the money and that it isn't the property of the bearers unless they allow it to be, which is nonsense.

If they own the '33 double eagles, then they own the coins in your pocket, the notes in your wallet, and the balances of your bank accounts as well. The illegality of the striking of those coins was purely technical since the V nickel design was approved by legislation and there was no recall of that type.

I did not steal the coins in my pocket, the notes in my wallet, or the balances in my bank accounts. I bought them with my labor.

I don't know the story with the Saints as well but everything I have heard about the 1913 nickels is that they were stolen. Not earned or received as gifts but stolen as surely as if I went into Fort Knox and helped myself to whatever gold I wanted.

So, the five nickels were stolen. That still doesn't make them the property of the government now. They now belong to the people who purchased them with their own hard earned money. The Saints were not stolen until the treasury stole them and they still belong to the hapless citizen who trusted those thieves though he'll never get them back.

If some bureaucrat decides that you're the next target, they'll take everything you have in the bank just as though you stole it from them. The point I'm making is that as long as government regards everything we have as theirs, we have no rights.

Don't kid yourself that they have any regard for you or how hard you worked for what you have.

Since you're absolutely determined to ignore the point I've made, I'll leave you with it. Sorry to have wasted my time.

I am not sure what the 'treasury stole them' part is about and it would probably go over my head anyway but... My understanding is that stolen property cannot pass title. I think that is true whether it was stolen from the government or from you or I.

If someone steals one of my coins and sells it on Ebay, I don't know what restitution the buyer has but I do know that he doesn't get to keep it if I find out. It may not be totally fair to him if he doesn't get compensated but I get my coin back anyway and I know I don't have to compensate him.

Now, with the 1913 Lib Nicks, I think it would be wrong for the government to go after them even if they can because they have allowed them to trade openly on the marketplace for such a long time.

That is not the case with the '33 Saints...assuming the '33 Saints were indeed stolen and not given as gifts by the govt, released into circulation, sold, etc.