Stuart Weitzman, the shoe designer, and collector, sold a 1933 Double Eagle gold coin for record-breaking $19.5 million at Sotheby’s auction in New York on Tuesday. The world’s most valuable stamp fetched $8.3 million.
Weitzman acquired the only one coin allowed for the sole privately owned in 2002 for a then-record $7.6 million. The 1933 Double Eagle was estimated to fetch between $10 – $15 million.
The purchaser has not been identified.
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The unique coin never issued as President Franklin Roosevelt removed the US from the gold standard and ordered that all copies be destroyed. Double Eagle was the last gold piece issued for circulation in the United States. It has a face value of $20 and featured an American eagle in flight on one side and Liberty walking forward on the other.
Weitzman, who has been collecting stamps and coins since he was a child, has stated that he intends to use the proceeds from Tuesday’s auction to benefit humanitarian endeavors such as medical research, his design school, and a Jewish museum in Madrid.
The designer continued a tradition established by previous owners by adding his own flourish on the back of the stamp – a line drawing of a stiletto heel and his initials.
Weitzman also sold an 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta stamp for $8.3 million on Tuesday. The stamp is the sole survivor of a series issued by the South American nation in response to a lack of stamps brought over by the country’s then-British colonial authorities.
A plate block of the 24 cents Inverted Jenny stamp (1918) sold for $4.9 million. The Inverted Jenny, to commemorate the first airmail letters was last sold at auction for $2.9 million some 26 years ago. It is a collector’s item due to a printing error that renders its biplane form upside down. The stamps sold for far less than their pre-auction predictions.
