US Double Eagle sells gold coin to break $ 18.9 million records Art and Culture News

Sotheby’s also issued a British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp issued in 1856 for a whopping $ 8.3 million, making it the most valuable stamp in history.

The 1933 Double Eagle, the last gold coin in America used for circulation, sold a record $ 18.9 million on Tuesday at New York’s Sotheby’s auction, and the world’s most bizarre stamps garnered a whopping $ 8.3 million.

The coin, the only permit for the 1933 Double Eagle to be privately owned, was expected to go up for auction for $ 10 million to $ 15 million, but was sold beyond that.

“The 1933 Double Eagle has a fascinating history that encompasses large parts of U.S. history and has been at the center of intrigue for more than 80 years,” said Sotheby’s statement.

With a face value of $ 20, the 1933 Double Eagle was designed by the famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens at the request of then-US President Theodore Roosevelt.

The coin has Liberty on one side and the American eagle on the other.

They struck coins but never used them. President Franklin Roosevelt was ordered to destroy all the Double Eagles in 1933 in an attempt to lift the damaged American economy from the depths of the Great Depression after removing the nation from the gold standard.

Sotheby’s said two coins were sent to the Smithsonian Institution.

On Tuesday, a 1933 private Double Eagle coin was sold by American shoe designer and collector Stuart Weitzman.

Weitzman acquired the coin in 2002 in exchange for what was then a world record of $ 7.6 million.

On Tuesday, Weitzman also auctioned off a one-cent magenta stamp from British Guiana in 1856 for $ 8.3 million. This price sets the stamp as the most valuable in history.

“No stamp is rarer than the only example of a penny of magenta in British Guiana, a single penny figure from 1856, but for more than a century because of the peak of stamp collecting,” Sotheby’s said.

The stamp is the only surviving one in the series printed by the South American nation due to the lack of stamps of its British colonial authorities at the time.

Weitzman bought the coveted stamp in 2014 for $ 9.5 million. In keeping with the tradition of past owners, Weitzman left his mark: a drawing of a shoe heel and its initials.

Sotheby’s said buyers of the 1933 Double Eagle and British Guiana Centaury Magenta stamp wanted to remain anonymous.

A block of four U.S. four-letter stamps known as ‘Inverted Jennies’ can be seen in a media preview before Sotheby’s was auctioned off in the United States. [File: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters]

In addition, a 24-cent block of “Reverse Jenny” stamps, issued in 1918 for the first U.S. mail letters, sold for $ 4.9 million, making it the most valuable U.S. stamp.

Inverted Jenny, which was auctioned off about 26 years ago for $ 2.9 million, has a unique printing flaw that makes the design of the biplane upside down.

Sotheby’s said the stamp block was bought by David Rubenstein, founder of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group.

Weitzman, an avid collector of stamps and coins since he was a child, said he will use the money from Tuesday’s auction of historic coins and stamps for his charity projects, including a Jewish museum in Madrid, Spain.