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briansol

I just happened to stumble across this article:

Gold-Silver Confiscation


For those of you not familiar, in the early 30's, the US gov't made it ILLEGAL to own gold coins, and made people turn them in in order to press the new paper money system that people weren't happy with.

While the rates for turn-in were good and encouraged those who had a 20-dollar gold piece to turn it in for say, $25 in paper notes, those who kept their coins were the wise ones. Go ask your grandfather or father if they have any of these lying around....

Today, a St. Gaudens Double Eagle (an eagle is $10, a double Eagle is $20) is worth an absolute fortune.
In the best "known example" condition, some coins are rated at being worth over 2 million dollars. That is not a typo. Have a look for yourself on the PCGS website:
St Gaudens $20

gold keeps very well. It would have been very easy to obtain a 62 or 63 grade (or even higher) coin from the bank in the late 20's, and stash it in a drawer some where for 40 years, until the act was repealed. Even in those moderate grades, the single coin is worth a small forutne.

Illegal? sure... to a certain extent I guess you could say its a criminal act to not turn it in when the goverment makes you do something as stupid as this. But as long as you don't try to spend it, you'll never get cought with it.
The act basically made the coins "illegal tender" rather than "you can't own this".

If the goverment came out today and said "no more Washington Quaters will be valid tender, and we will give you $1 per quarter" you can only imagine the rush of everyone raiding their ashtrays, hitting up vending machines and the car wash change machines for all they are worth.

But, if you have a bucket of quarters somewhere, and keep them, knowing that you can't spend them, and are losing out on a 300% gain on your money, you very well may be the wise one in the future.

While today's "clad" quaters are all but worthless (most are worth exactly that- a quarter) and have next to no precious metal content, hey, you never know.

Maybe turn in half of them, keep a couple and hope for the best?

Ahhh... diversity....

getnick

I kept a bunch of the original delaware quarters because i heard they were mis-manufactured and weigh less than regulation. i heard they were worth a little more than $.25 so i kept about 2 dozen. if they aren't, eh, whatever.

briansol

The statehood quarters are worth a forutne.... but if you got them as change, they are worth a quarter.

The OGP (Original Governmnet Packaging) coins and sets are the ones that are worth money.

I've been pressing this for years, but I encourage you all to get the yearly mint and proof sets in both clad and siilver every year. It can be done for about $100 for all 4 sets (2 mint, 1 proof clad, 1 proof silver)

Had you done this in 1999, or 2001 or 2004, you're 100 investment would have more than quadroupled.

The silver proof sets sell for about $40 when they are current in-year

U.S. Mint Online Product Catalog


to see what the 99 set has done, check this out:
eBay - 1999 silver, 1999 silver 1999-2003 items on eBay.com

On e-bay they are getting 350+ for some sets from the 99 silver proof set, that just a short 7 years ago cost 40 bucks.
More than an 800% ROI.

If you bought 100 sets, you spent 4 grand, and you could have auctions up there totaling 35 grand.

getnick

Funny that i just came across this thread. I spoke with a 70 year old client yesterday and he mentioned the government making it illegal. it was interesting information and I wasn't sure what to think. I guess it's pretty common knowledge.