Our 1933 Double Eagle ArchivalEdition commemorative coin is produced with the same design and dimensions of the original coin and is 100% legal to own. The obverse features a striking image of Liberty as sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the reverse featured an eagle in flight illuminated by rays of sunlight. The year on the coin is 1933.
- 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle
- Apr 18, 2015 U.S. Department of the Treasury officials insist 10 $20 Double Eagles, like this one, were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before the 1933 series was melted down when the country went off.
- The 1933 Double Eagle was the last gold coin struck for circulation by the U.S. Before they were legally released, however, a Presidential order was issued on March 6, 1933 prohibiting banks from paying out gold coins or gold certificates.
- The Farouk 1933 Double Eagle In 1944 King Farouk of Egypt obtained an export license for a 1933 Double Eagle. After realizing they had mistakenly granted a license for one of the stolen 1933 Double Eagles, the United States Government requested for the coin to be returned.
Joshua McMorrow-Hernandez
Coin Info
$1,778.98
United States
Gold Coin
0.96750 t oz
$20 USD
445,500
U.S. Mint
1933
Now one of the rarest coins of all time, the 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle is also one of the most valuable. When it traded hands at auction in July 2002, it recorded a price $7.5 million. This storied coin, once owned by King Farouk and famously stored in a vault below New York City’s World Trade Center shortly before the complex was destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was actually once a common coin.
Some 445,500 double eagles were made in 1933, but that was the year President Franklin Delano Roosevelt removed the United States from the gold standard. All but 13 known specimens of the 1933 double eagle were melted (the remaining pieces are believed to have been kept by U.S. Mint employees), including most of the late 1920s and early 1930s $20 gold coins. Many other gold coins also met a similar fate, and this is why many pre-1933 gold coins are actually much scarcer than their mintage figures suggest.
Below are specifics about the Saint-Gaudens double eagle:
- Face Value: $20
- Overall Mass: 33.436 grams
- Diameter: 34 millimeters
- Edge: Lettered, “E PLURIBUS UNUM”
- Composition: 90% gold, 10% copper
- Gold: .96750 troy ounces
The Saint-Gaudens double eagle is considered by many to be the most beautiful gold coin the U.S. has ever produced. The obverse design of the Saint-Gaudens double eagle would reappear on U.S. coinage beginning in 1986 with the introduction of the American Gold Eagle.