Minted since 1850, the American 1933 Double Eagle is made of solid gold. In 1933 the US government decided against distributing the coin and they were all destroyed, or so they thought.
George McCann managed to steal 10 of the coins, but all were recovered and destroyed, or so they thought.
Three survived, two of them are now in the Smithsonian, and the third ended up in a private collection in Egypt. Eventually the coin made it to New York to be sold, but was seized by Federal Agents and stored in a vault in the WTC.
Luckily, just weeks before 9/11 the coin was moved to Fort Knox.
July 30 2002 the coin was legally sold to an unnamed collector for just under $7,600,000.00 making it the most expensive coin in the world.
1933 Double Eagle
