“And you got considerably more,” Stone said. “Half of everything, wasn’t it?”
“That’s correct, but apart from pulling the original safe out of the water, I had done all the work, with Cantor’s help. He got a million dollars.”
“And there was an argument among the men about this?”
“I heard later that one of them had objected to the arrangement.”
“And what happened to him?”
“I don’t know, exactly, but I have my suspicions. I was told about it, in veiled terms, as I was about to get onto an airplane for Washington.”
“And that was it? Everybody was happy?”
“As far as I knew. There was one other facet to all this, though, and I’ve never told anyone about it.”
Both Stone and Holly sat silently and waited.
“I’m afraid this is going to require a history lesson,” Barton said finally.
16
Barton got up, went to his safe, opened it, opened a drawer inside and took out a small, suede pouch, closed with a drawstring. He came back and sat down, resting the pouch on his knee.
“After Franklin Roosevelt took office, in 1933, he took the country off the gold standard, in order to end the run on the banks and settle down the economy. All the gold coins were recalled and exchanged for paper money, and it became illegal to own gold coins, unless they were clearly rare and worthy of collecting. The last double eagles minted were the design by Augustus Saint-Gaudens; there were four hundred forty-five thousand five hundred minted, and they were dated 1933.
“Since gold coins were no longer circulated, all the Saint-Gaudens double eagles were melted down and converted to bullion. Two specimens were given to the Smithsonian. But somehow, examples of these double eagles began turning up here and there. It’s believed that a high-ranking employee of the mint kept twenty or more and replaced them with other double eagles, so that the accounts balanced, but nobody knows exactly how many were thus liberated.
“My engraver friend in San Francisco, whose name was Isaac Finkel, possessed a 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle. He wouldn’t say how he got it, but I think that probably a relative of his worked at the mint and managed to retain one before they were melted down. Isaac wanted me to sell it for him, and I agreed to do so, on one condition: Using his Saint-Gaudens as a model, he would cut a new die for the coin, strike two for me, and I would pay him one million dollars for it.
“Isaac did as I asked, and the resulting two coins struck were absolutely undistinguishable from his original coin. I sold one of the two coins, representing it as original, to a Japanese businessman who had something of a reputation for collecting the uncollectible, for three million dollars, and gave a million to Isaac.
“There were other examples about. A Philadelphia jeweler came into possession of nineteen of the Saint-Gaudens double eagles. He sold at least nine of them to collectors, and the government confiscated eight of those. The ninth apparently passed into the possession of King Farouk of Egypt, and when he was deposed it came onto the market. But when the U.S. Government made extensive efforts to recover it, it disappeared, and what with the Feds’ interest in the coins, dealers became reluctant to market them. In 2004, the Philadelphia jeweler’s daughter found her father’s other ten Saint-Gaudens among his possessions after his death, and she foolishly sent them to the U.S. Mint for authentication. I believe she may still be trying to get them back.
“But the most interesting story came when a British coin dealer turned up with the King Farouk Saint-Gaudens during the nineties in New York, where he tried to sell it to someone who turned out to be a Treasury agent.
“The government confiscated the coin, and the dealer promptly sued to get it back. During the lawsuit, which lasted for some years, the double eagle was deposited in the Treasury vaults at the World Trade Center. A couple of months before the 9/11 attacks the dealer and the U.S. Mint settled, agreeing to sell it at auction and divide the proceeds. The coin was removed from the vaults, monetized by the Treasury and sold at auction. It brought, including the buyer’s premium, seven million five hundred and ninety thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit,” Holly said.
“What happened to your two coins, Barton?”
“I kept them for many years, then sold one to a collector, for… well, shall we say, for something less than seven million dollars. I used the money – some of it, anyway – to buy the Goddard-Townsend mahogany secretary that Holly so admires.” He opened the suede pouch and emptied it into his hand. “This,” he said, holding a gold coin up between thumb and forefinger, “is the original Saint-Gaudens from Isaac Finkel.” He took Holly’s hand and placed the coin in it.
Holly weighed it in her hand, then gave it to Stone.
“So this is what seven million dollars looks like,” he said.
“Yes,” Barton replied, “give or take.”
“Barton,” Holly said, “how much did you pay for the secretary?”
“That shall remain my secre
t,” Barton replied, “but my investment in the piece is considerably more than the purchase price. You see, Isaac Finkel, by duplicating the Saint-Gaudens, had given me an idea. I had for years, with the help of two very fine cabinetmakers, been reproducing eighteenth-century pieces, small ones from old mahogany I had collected. You see it in the racks over there.” He pointed.
“And you made the other secretary from that wood?” she asked.
“I believe I told Stone that, but it is not so.”