Registered: 01/28/02
Posts: 18025
Loc: Los Angeles
Originally Posted By: tradedollarnut
I heard a rumor the bags actually came from Russia and the story was just that - a story. But that's just a rumor. I don't see why it would matter much.
A made-up story being attached to a hoard of coins? I just can't believe that would ever happen.
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I was still a grader at NGC when those coins surfaced.
If I had merely heard about the number of coins receiving such (high) grades and not seen them, I would have been certain that the grading was way too liberal. However, seeing them in-hand, however, I thought that overall, the grading was quite good/accurate. What an amazing group of Saints!
I have heard that this hoard received very generous grades from PCGS and that because of this, the Wells Fargo pedigree carries a stigma resulting in some owners asking PCGS to reholder them without the pedigree noted on the label.
Registered: 02/02/02
Posts: 5004
Loc: East central Indiana
The gold recall order is a rather odd document full of loopholes. The people were directed to turn in their gold but it still seems to have been a voluntary recall. The banks HAD to turn the gold they held in to the government and any gold turned into them over the counter. But I doubt they could confiscate privately held gold on their premises. Then there was the loophole that allowed collectors to hold "rare and unusual" gold coins and "rare and unusual" was defined as all US gold coins struck before I believe it was April 5th 1933. So if someone was a "collector" they could hold an unlimited number of gold coins of any and all dates and mints. (Except for quarter eagles where you were limited to no more than four specimens of any given date and mint combination.) So in theory these nearly 20 thousand double eagles could be legally held by a private "collector" and even if they were stored in a bank vault the bank or government couldn't touch them.
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#3195508 - 05/27/0908:15 PMRe: The Wells Fargo Hoard .. How did this happen?
[Re: BillJones]
WoodenJeffersonWoodenJefferson I have nothing to add or subtract, I am merely here.
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Registered: 12/08/06
Posts: 12956
Loc: In the minds of many
In my mind, I’m trying to analyze how a gold coin made in the 1900’s, bagged and stored in a vault/vaults for 60 years can be graded out as MS-69, or even grade out at MS-68 (the key word here is “bagged“ and maybe even re-bagged…as in tumbling, scraping, rubbing, clinking, digging and chinking)
Seems to me the handling alone would render even the best of the best to no more than a 66.
#3195519 - 05/27/0908:18 PMRe: The Wells Fargo Hoard .. How did this happen?
[Re: Conder101]
RWBRWB
FACT if I stop posting, trillions and trillions of transistors would be out of work.
Registered: 01/03/05
Posts: 4513
Gold nationalization occurred over several steps and was not the simple executive order than many coin collectors assume. The original order referred to hoarding and was a follow-on to the failed voluntary order by President Hoover of February 1932.
(A lot of gold and other currency was turned in between Feb and June, then that amount and more was re-hoarded following failure of major banks in the Chicago area. Hoover didn’t try again, but he did approve secretly recording the name and address of everyone who withdrew gold coin in large amounts from banks, as well as unusual activity in renting or accessing safe deposit boxes.)
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Author of “Renaissance of American Coinage” (NLG Book-of-the-Year 3 years in a row) series and “Guide Book of Peace Dollars,” NLG 2011-Best Software: “Annual Assay Commission, United States Mint, 1800-1943,” and “Silver Dollars Struck under the Pittman Act.” Federal Court-approved numismatic expert. Contributor to the Red Book, Judd Patterns and many other fine numismatic books, discoverer of two gold patterns, and author of numerous coin research articles.
#3195709 - 05/27/0909:12 PMRe: The Wells Fargo Hoard .. How did this happen?
[Re: RWB]
DaveGDaveG
Up 20 words per minute since I signed up
Registered: 02/02/02
Posts: 1183
jtryka has given the bulk of the story - there's only a little bit more in Bowers' Red Book of Double Eagles. Bowers quotes Ron Gillio's description - he doesn't mention where the gold was stored before he bought it or who owned it.
Conder101: according to Tripp's Illegal Tender, the Government was keeping records of large gold withdrawals before the gold confiscation order and put a lot of pressure on private individuals to return the gold they had withdrawn, so I'd think it would have been unlikely that the Wells Fargo hoard could have survived had it been located in the States.
Registered: 08/08/02
Posts: 7433
Loc: The Crossroads of America
Originally Posted By: DaveG
jtryka has given the bulk of the story - there's only a little bit more in Bowers' Red Book of Double Eagles. Bowers quotes Ron Gillio's description - he doesn't mention where the gold was stored before he bought it or who owned it.
Conder101: according to Tripp's Illegal Tender, the Government was keeping records of large gold withdrawals before the gold confiscation order and put a lot of pressure on private individuals to return the gold they had withdrawn, so I'd think it would have been unlikely that the Wells Fargo hoard could have survived had it been located in the States.
I believe this hoard never left the US, but was held at a bank for some international payment. It could be that the hoard was owned by a foreign government and stored here, which would have been quite legal. After all, the 19,900 double eagles was approximately 0.6 tonnes, and foreign governments have held hundreds of tonnes of gold in the basement of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY for the last 90 years. Keep in mind also that this would have been a large gold withdrawal made in 1917, well before the chaos of the early 1930s and all indications are that the coins were undisturbed from 1917 through the 1960s when they were rebagged.
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#3196612 - 05/28/0909:09 AMRe: The Wells Fargo Hoard .. How did this happen?
[Re: jtryka]
kryptonitecomicskryptonitecomics
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Registered: 03/11/03
Posts: 8009
Loc: O-Town Baby! Home of the Magic
The real story is that I used my Delorean to go back to 1908 and purchase the Double Eagles......
Then I reappeared in the 1960's so I could get them transferred into modern bags to help erase any suspicions others would have if they found my pristine bags of gold coins stored in hundred year old bags.
Finally my cousin Vinny helped me smuggle the coins back into the bank using a vintage Wells Fargo Stage Coach.
The coins weren't actually stored in a Wells fargo Bank....we just used the stage coach name as we thought it would sound better then the Banco Popular hoard TM
