Daughter: ‘No idea’ how Switt got 1933 double eagles

The one person who may have known how ten 1933 gold coins worth millions of dollars ended up in the hands of Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt took the witness stand in federal court Tuesday - and said she had no idea.

That means a jury will have to rely on thick binders of Philadelphia Mint records from the 1930s and 1940s to determine if the rare $20 gold pieces were stolen, as the government insists, or are legitimately the property of Switt's descendants.

It was Switt's daughter, Joan Langbord, 81, who flatly said "I have no idea" how her father had obtained the 1933 double-eagle coins. A 1933 double eagle was sold in 2004 for $7.5 million, a record price for any coin.

Government attorneys say there was no legal way any of the coins could have been obtained from the Mint. "Israel Switt and some of his friends stole 1933 double eagles from the Philadelphia Mint," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said during closing arguments Tuesday.

The case is expected to go to the U.S. District Court jury on Wednesday.

The Mint never legally issued the 1933 double eagles, and all 445,471 were accounted for in mint records, Romero said. In 1937, all the coins were supposed to have been melted down into bullion. But since then, at least 21 have surfaced, and all can be traced back to Switt, who Romero said had gotten them from a corrupt Mint official. Switt died in 1990.

Langbord family attorney Barry H. Berke argued that the coins could have been legally obtained from the Mint during a "window of opportunity" in March and April 1933, and that government had not proved otherwise.

"If the coins could have gone out, they have no case," Berke said.

U.S. Treasury officials want the jury to declare the coins forfeited to the government as stolen property, so government attorneys have to show that the "preponderance of evidence" proves theft.

Langbord said she had discovered the coins in 2003 during one of her periodic visits to a safe-deposit box containing jewelry inherited from her mother. She reached down to the bottom of the large steel case and saw an old John Wanamaker store bag, she said. Turning back the paper, she saw a gold coin with the distinctive design of the 1933 double eagle.

Because she inherited the box, Langbord said, she had not previously fully searched it, and only occasionally opened it to remove a piece of her mother's jewelry, uniquely styled and sought after by a customer, for sale at I. Switt, the Jeweler's Row store founded by her father.

"You never knew what was on the bottom?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Rue asked on cross-examination.

"No, ma'am, I did not," Langbord said.

The coins were seized by the U.S. Treasury, but District Judge Legrome D. Davis ruled the government had to prove they had been stolen.

Langbord's appearance was a rare break after days of mind-numbing testimony about Mint records that government attorneys said accurately tracked every coin produced at the facility.

Berke contended otherwise, and in his closing said the complex records were incomplete and rife with errors, making it impossible for anyone to state with certainty that the coins were stolen.

In the 1940s, Switt was investigated by the Secret Service, which seized nine double eagles that he had sold to coin dealers after 1937. Switt said he had no recollection of how he had gotten those coins, and swore under oath that he had no others.

His daughter testified that while she had worked in her father's store from age 9, she had not been involved in purchasing goods and had never known he had the coins.

The shop remains in operation. "It looks like a junk shop," Langbord said, "but expensive junk."