Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (52 page)

The Crime:
On November 26, 1977, the Independent Television News was airing its daily report in southern England when the audio feed suddenly dropped out. Although the image of the newscaster remained intact, what viewers heard was the buzzing, highly distorted voice of someone calling himself “Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Command.” Vrillon went on to explain that he was from a distant planet and was hijacking the news to warn people that nuclear war was inevitable unless humanity could “learn to live together in peace and goodwill.” Vrillon rambled on about peace and understanding for five minutes; then the news returned to normal.

The Aftermath:
The identity of the signal hacker was never discovered. But because the highly distorted voice had a clear British accent, authorities are fairly sure that “Vrillon” is not a real alien.

The Crime:
Fifteen minutes into a November 22, 1987, late-night airing of
Doctor Who
on Chicago’s PBS affiliate WTTW, the image changed to a shot of a man in a Max Headroom mask (Max Headroom was a character from a short-lived science fiction TV show). In an electronically distorted voice, “Headroom” went on a three-minute, seemingly nonsensical rant. Among his statements: “he’s a freaky nerd,” “this guy’s better than Chuck Swirsky” (a Chicago sportscaster), “they’re coming to get me,” and “I just
made a giant masterpiece printed all over the greatest world newspaper nerds.” The man then dropped his pants and mooned the camera as a masked woman slapped his buttocks with a flyswatter. Then the picture turned to static and
Doctor Who
reappeared.

The Aftermath:
A joint FBI/FCC investigation determined that the pirate had extensive knowledge of electronics and broadcasting, because he overtook the
Doctor Who
broadcast by overpowering it with a more powerful signal. This was no small feat, considering that the WTTW antenna was on top of the Sears Tower. According to the FCC, a suitcase-sized device capable of overtaking the WTTW signal could be produced for about $25,000. Agents believe that’s what the pirate used, as he beamed his message from a nearby rooftop. But searches of buildings adjacent to the Sears Tower turned up nothing. What was the reason for the signal interruption? It may have been a grudge against Chicago TV station WGN. The same night as the
Doctor Who
interception, the Max Headroom guy cut into WGN’s nightly news for a few seconds, and his comment about the “greatest world newspaper nerds” could have been a reference to WGN’s call letters, which stand for “world’s greatest newspaper” (the station was owned by the
Chicago Tribune)
. But whoever the pirate was, and exactly why he did it, have never been discovered.

To date, the National Toy Hall Of Fame, located in Rochester, New York, has honored 39 classic toys and games. They are: alphabet blocks, the Atari 2600, Barbie, the bicycle, Candy Land, checkers, Crayola crayons, the Duncan Yo-Yo, the Easy Bake Oven, the Erector Set, Etch-A-Sketch, the Frisbee, G.I. Joe, the hula hoop, jack-in-the-box, jacks, the jigsaw puzzle, jump rope, the kite, LEGOs, Lincoln Logs, Lionel trains, marbles, Monopoly, Mr. Potato Head, Play-Doh, the Radio Flyer wagon, Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, the rocking horse, roller skates, SCRABBLE, Silly Putty, Slinky, the teddy bear, Tinkertoys, Tonka Trucks, and the View-Master. In 2005 they added perhaps the most timeless toy of them all: the cardboard box.

The exciting conclusion to our story of gold, international intrigue, and the most elusive coin in American history. (Part I is on page 155.)

T
HE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION
Stephen Fenton was the owner of Knightsbridge Coins, a London coin dealer. In 1994 Fenton and his business partner, Andre de Clermont, began buying rare coins from an Egyptian jeweler. The Egyptian wished to remain anonymous, saying only that he had access to many valuable coins because he was a family friend of a colonel in the ruling Egyptian army of the 1950s. That colonel, it turned out, had “acquired” a number of unsold items from the 1954 King Farouk coin auction, and when the colonel died, his family had sold it to this Egyptian jeweler. Fenton and de Clermont bought several items from him and compared them to the 1954 auction catalog. The coins matched the ones from Farouk’s collection.

A year later de Clermont met with the Egyptian at his hotel room to view another coin he was offering for sale. He presented de Clermont with a worn Sotheby’s envelope from 1954. Inside was Farouk’s 1933 Double Eagle. The Egyptian wanted $325,000 for it, but de Clermont consulted with Fenton and they talked the Egyptian into selling the coin for $220,000. Fenton and de Clermont agreed to split the profits when they resold it.

Fenton started looking for a buyer and through a Kansas City coin dealer named Jasper Parrino he found Jack Moore, who was a high-end coin collector…and a government informant on stolen coins. When Parrino offered Moore a chance to buy a 1933 Double Eagle, Moore told Parrino he was interested, then immediately called the Treasury Department—he knew the entire story of the coin and that if one ever showed up, it was stolen.

Unfortunately, and unlike Moore, Stephen Fenton
didn’t
know
the whole story of the 1933 Double Eagle. Specifically, he didn’t know the part about that coin being stolen federal property that had been missing for more than four decades.

The Treasury and the Secret Service talked Moore into helping them stage a sting operation to retrieve the Double Eagle from Fenton. Through Parrino (who was unaware of the sting), Moore told Fenton that he’d buy the Double Eagle for $1.5 million via wire transfer, but that he’d like to receive the coin in person at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The meeting took place in February 1996. Moore also brought two people with him: a “co-buyer” and a “coin expert”…both of whom were actually undercover Secret Service agents.

Fenton brought the coin to Moore’s room, which was rigged with surveillance equipment. As Fenton handed the coin to Moore, Secret Service agents rushed the room, seized the coin, and threw Fenton to the ground. Fenton was arrested and taken into custody at the Manhattan Secret Service offices, where he was charged with conspiring to embezzle and convert to his own use property of the United States. The coin was moved to a Treasury Department vault at the World Trade Center.

The public defender’s office gave Fenton a list of local attorneys, and from it he selected a man named Barry Berke. Berke managed to get Fenton released from custody on the condition that he not leave the city. By April, Berke had convinced a federal judge that Fenton wasn’t a criminal and that he’d had no idea he had tried to sell stolen federal property. Fenton was cleared of all criminal charges.

Next to be decided was the issue of ownership of the coin. Berke had to find some way to prove that his client rightfully owned the coin. But the 1947 L. G. Barnard case had established a precedent that the government owned all the 1933 Double Eagles because they had been stolen from the U.S. Mint. In order for Fenton to keep the disputed Double Eagle, Berke would have to prove that this coin was somehow different from Barnard’s.

And he did.

At a 2000 hearing, Berke argued that since the coin had been purchased through legal channels by Farouk and its export completely cleared by the Treasury Department in 1944, the U.S. government had forfeited its claim to that coin. In July 2001, a federal judge ruled that both Fenton
and
the government had rights to the coin. The judge’s solution: The government would retain ownership of the Farouk 1933 Double Eagle, but it would be sold at auction, and the proceeds would be split 50-50 between the Treasury Department and Fenton.

If not for lucky timing, the auction may never have happened at all. In July 2001, the 1933 Double Eagle was removed from a vault in the World Trade Center and transported to Fort Knox. Less than two months later, the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

On July 30, 2002, the world’s only 1933 Double Eagle (other than the two in the Smithsonian) was put up for sale at an auction conducted by Sotheby’s in conjunction with Stack’s coin house. In order to participate, potential buyers had to produce bank records to show they had the ability to pay for the coin, bidding for which would begin at $2.5 million. Coin experts predicted that the final sale price would probably reach around $4.5 million.

Twelve people qualified to take part in the auction, including two phone bidders. Sotheby’s vice-chairman David Redden conducted the auction, which began at exactly 6:00 p.m. Within three minutes, bidding topped $4 million. At that point, all but two bidders had dropped out: an anonymous man standing in the back of the room, and a phone bidder for whom a Sotheby’s employee acted as a proxy.

When the price reached $6.6 million, the man at the back of the room bowed out. It was all over in nine minutes. The man on the phone had purchased the 1933 Double Eagle for $6.6 million, plus a 15% seller’s premium and a $20 fee to the Treasury to “monetize” the coin in order to make it legal currency. Total price: $7,590,020. As agreed, Fenton got half and the Treasury got half (plus the $20). The identity of the buyer remains a secret to this day.

In 2005 Israel Switt, the Philadelphia jeweler whose illegal activities began the Double Eagle saga, died. That August his daughter Joan Langbord was going through his Philadelphia store and made a startling discovery: Those other three coins weren’t the only ones in the world after all. In the store’s safe were 10 gold 1933 Double Eagle coins. They’d never been sold and had been sitting there for more than 70 years. And what’s more startling is that Langbord had no idea of the significance of the coins…until she tried to get them appraised by another coin dealer and found out exactly what these 10 coins were.

The coin dealer had to notify the Secret Service, who then brokered a deal with Langbord. She would turn over the coins to them (she had no choice—they were stolen property) and they’d give her a large cash settlement. How much would she get? No one knows. As of May 2008, Langbord still hadn’t received a check and was planning to sue the government for rightful possession of the coins. And what became of the 10 Double Eagles? So far, they remain intact—the Treasury Department has yet to make a decision on whether to melt them down or to display them in a museum.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps—the breakout star of the 2008 Games, winning eight gold medals—trains hard, swimming five hours a day, six days a week. All that swimming requires a lot of food. Phelps claims he eats about 12,000 calories a day—six times the requirement of an adult male. Here’s his typical menu.

Breakfast:
Three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and mayonnaise; a five-egg omelette; a bowl of grits; three slices of French toast; three chocolate chip pancakes; and two cups of coffee.

Lunch:
A pound of pasta, two ham and cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise, and 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.