World's rarest coin, 1933 Double Eagle, fetches $7.59 million

NEW YORK -- A 1933 Double Eagle gold coin that never went into circulation was sold Tuesday for $7.59 million -- believed to be the most ever paid for a coin at auction.

"It is now, as of this evening, the most valuable coin in the world," said the director of the U.S. Mint, Henrietta Holsman Fore.

The U.S. Mint, which owned the coin sold to an anonymous bidder, had estimated the coin's value at $4 million to $6 million.

Double Eagles were first minted in 1850, with a face value of $20. The ones that were minted in 1933 were not circulated because President Roosevelt decided to take the nation off the gold standard.

The coin auctioned Tuesday night is believed to be one of very few 1933 Double Eagles to have survived an order that year that the coins be melted down. The front features a standing Liberty figure. The other side features a majestic eagle. Before the coins were melted down, two were handed over to the Smithsonian Institution for historic safekeeping. One other survived, was thought to have been illegally smuggled out of the Mint and ended up in the storied coin collection of Egypt's last monarch, King Farouk. The coin disappeared in the 1950s and surfaced again in 1996.

The Double Eagle appeared when British coin dealer Stephen Fenton tried selling it to undercover Secret Service agents at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. An out-of-court settlement with Fenton last year cleared the way for the auction, the Mint says.

Fore said money from the sale of the rare coin will go into the U.S. Treasury. "It will be used to pay down the public debt and fund the war on terrorism," she said.

The sale price includes $6.6 million for the U.S. government, a 15 percent commission for Sotheby's auction house and the coin's $20 face value.

"It's an enigma," said Stephen Tebo, a real estate developer and coin collector from Boulder, Colo. He flew to New York for the auction at Sotheby's but dropped out when bidding topped $4 million.

"I've spent 40 years collecting, and I've never seen one on the market before," he said.

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On the Net: Sotheby's: http://sothebys.ebay.com

U.S. Mint: http://www.usmint.gov/auction