Dies of Most Valuable U.S. Coin--the Gold Eagle--Disappear

Dies used for the most valuable coin minted by the U.S. government were lost or stolen while en route between mints in San Francisco and West Point, N.Y., a Treasury Department official acknowledged Thursday.

The Secret Service is investigating the disappearance in January of 24 dies for the front of 1-ounce gold bullion Eagles, said Michael Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint. The Eagle has a face value of $50 but the sales price, which fluctuates with the price of spot gold, currently is $460 to $470.

The dies, 5-inch-long cylinders the width of a coin, are worth about $40 each, Brown said. He said the missing dies probably are of little use to counterfeiters because all were for one side of the coin.

The dies were sent by overnight delivery service. Normally, delivery service employees sign for the items at each transfer point, but Brown said a clerk at the San Francisco Mint apparently failed to complete a shipping form requiring that.

“They were shipped as ordinary freight, as if they were a crate of oranges,” said Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Banking subcommittee that oversees the Mint. He called the error unpardonable.

The loss was the second in two years. In the first, 44 dies used to strike the $1 Statue of Liberty commemorative coins disappeared in April, 1986, on their way to the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa. Only one was ever recovered.

After that incident, the Mint began hiring armored cars for cross-border shipments but continued to use overnight mail services for delivery within the United States. In April, three months after the Eagle dies disappeared, the Mint also began using armored cars for domestic shipments, Brown said.