Double Eagle Coins Used To Pay A Wal-Mart Bill

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 30th 2009 at 4:02PM

Has the economy really come to this, people using rare gold coins to pay for groceries? A woman in St. George, Utah went to the Zions Bank and handed over 14 gold $20 Double Eagle coins, saying she had groceries waiting at Wal-Mart, which would not accept the coins as payment. The bank teller gave the woman $280 but the coins were worth far more. The oldest coin was minted in 1875 and the most recent was 1927. Now the search is on for the woman because she could be getting a lot more money. Double Eagles can fetch thousands of dollars or even up to $1 million depending on the date. Even melted down the coins would fetch around $900 each at today's gold prices. It is assumed the woman did not know the treasure that she surrendered but she's in for a big payday now.

Tags: coins, double eagle, DoubleEagle, utah

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

William Mar 30th 2009 5:07PM

Now that's just silly! Even a toddler would know that the raw gold value would be worth more than a lousy $20. I don't understand why Zions bank would want, or legally have to give the coins back to the old lady - she traded it for its face value fair and square. Everybody knows that if you trade something, even for far less than its worth, you can't undo. Even kids understand the phrase 'no take-backs'.

If I was the bank teller, I'd buy back the coins - its not illegal to take advantage of someone's lack of intelligence right?

just me Mar 30th 2009 5:35PM

This is sad.

shieldsbrown Mar 30th 2009 7:04PM

So let me get this straight: there's a bank teller so dumb he doesn't know to question a gold coin. Jeeze. This whole bank mess is 'way worse than I thought.

danny Mar 30th 2009 7:57PM

they fired the teller for buying them form her

chad.dawkins Mar 31st 2009 12:09AM

Why would they fire the teller? Aren't they legal tender? I'm betting she stole the coins. No one can be that stupid with their own property.

inny Mar 31st 2009 5:40AM

Stupid bank teller.

A $20 dollar gold coin...

whatever its age...

is Worth ($) its Weight...

in gold...

Sigh Mar 31st 2009 9:24AM

They are legally required to return them because there was a mutual mistake as to their value. The teller should have been fired because he/she was incompetent.

micki Mar 31st 2009 10:37PM

Legal tender gold coins have several values depending on whether you look at the nominal, intrinsic or numismatic value. From a legal stand point however the coin can be used at the face value and noone is forced to value it at a higher rate than that. Furthermore being legal tender it is illegal to refuse the coins as payment. So first of all Walmart broke the law, secondly, the bank was from a legal point of view not doing anything wrong changing the coins. It is however nice to see that they are trying to correct a mistake make by the lady handing in the coins. This just shows how ignorant people are about money and particularly history of money and what honest money is (i.e. as opposed to counterfeit fiat)