Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, And The Mystery Of The Lost 1933 Double Eagle

Illegal Tender: Gold, Greed, And The Mystery Of The Lost 1933 Double Eagle

by David Tripp (Author)

Synopsis

It's the stuff myths are made of: the story of a celebrated artefact - the 1933 twenty-dollar gold piece - and its incredible journey from the deathbed of a famous artist to a sybaritic Egyptian king to a vault in the World Trade Centre to a record-breaking auction in July 2002, where it was sold for more than USD7.5 million. In ILLEGAL TENDER David Tripp tells a riveting tale of greed, intrigue and deception as it follows the once-secret trajectory of this amazing coin over the course of nearly a century. In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned America's greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to design what became America's most beautiful coin. At the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt took America off the gold standard and the newly minted but unissued 1933 Double Eagles were melted down. A few escaped, purloined, but were tracked down in a relentless investigation by the Secret Service, confiscated, and destroyed. But somehow, one survived. With its cast of kings, presidents, government agents, shadowy dealers and crooks, ILLEGAL TENDER will keep readers guessing about this priceless disk of gold - the coin that shouldn't be and almost wasn't - until the very end.

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Quantity

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 363
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 18 Apr 2005

ISBN 10: 0743245741
ISBN 13: 9780743245746

Media Reviews
Illegal Tender is an excellent read -- the first book I've ever read where the protagonist is a coin, the 1933 double eagle. It's a first-rate adventure story, and I was instantly hooked. Anyone who as a kid dug for treasure in his backyard will love this book. It made me want to get my metal detector out of the closet and go on a quest of my own. --Ben Mezrich, author of the New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House
A solid-gold spellbinder. David Tripp's Illegal Tender has all the elements of a classic thriller -- foreign intrigue with Egyptian royalty and American presidents, a government sting, a rare object with a multimillion-dollar price tag -- and most amazing of all, the story he so deftly weaves together is all true. --Linda Fairstein, author of the New York Times bestseller The Kills