Pre-1933 Gold

Morgan Gold as a Direct Provider of Gold Coins

The vast majority of pre-1933 classic United States gold coins that trade in the market of the 21st century--particularly late-date Liberty and Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles--have been recovered from European banks and brought back to the United States through an ongoing process that stretches back to the 1950s. To understand how, why and when gold coins struck in the United States Mint ended up in European banks requires a brief understanding of the role of gold coins in the U.S. economy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s on our nation's gold coinage.

The United States Twenty-Dollar Gold Piece, or Double Eagle 

The highest-denomination coin ever struck in the United States Mint for commercial use is the Double Eagle, or Twenty-Dollar gold piece. First produced in 1850 as a direct result of the 1848 discovery of gold in California and the subsequent California Gold Rush, lawmakers initially conceived the Double Eagle as a convenient storehouse for the vast quantities of gold being mined on the West Coast. By the late 19th century, however, the Double Eagle had also become useful as a vehicle for the transfer of wealth between the United States and foreign governments and other institutions. Indeed, the vast majority of Double Eagles struck during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were produced expressly for use in the United States' export trade. Conversely, the federal government expected average Americans to make use of less-desirable silver, nickel and bronze coins, as well as paper money, for everyday transactions within the borders of the United States. As early as 1895, in fact, the need for gold coins to prop up the financial standing of the United States in the global market was so great that the federal government was forced to call upon Wall Street financiers such as J.P. Morgan to contribute many of these coins from their own holdings so that the nation could meet its international obligations without draining the bullion reserves of the United States Treasury to dangerous levels. The need for Double Eagles to use in international trade would only increase during the early decades of the 20th century, especially given the then-unheard of cost assumed by the United States in financing and fighting alongside the Allied Powers during the First World War.

The Connection Between Morgan Gold, the U.S. Rare Coin Market, and European Banks 

European banks continued to hold on to United States gold coins until it became lucrative for dealers and others to begin the recovery of these coins for return to their country of origin. This process began tentatively in the 1950s and 1960s, but has achieved its greatest momentum since the early 1970s when the federal government finally lifted the ban on private ownership of gold that had been in place since 1933.

Since 1985, the principals of Morgan Gold have been involved in the recovery of United States gold coins from Europe. We have consistently served as importers of classic United States gold coins, bringing this product directly to market where it is made available to collectors, investors and even other dealers. Few other professionals active in today's rare coin and precious metals markets can claim such an intimate and long-standing relationship with our nation's classic gold coinage. In short, Morgan Gold is the best source in today's market to obtain beautiful, historic, direct-to-market United States gold coinage from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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