Heads Or Tails? U.S. Double Eagle Gold Coin Sells For Record $18.9 Million

A 1933 Double Eagle gold coin sold for a record $18.9 million at auction in New York, reports said Wednesday.

The coin, with a face value of $20, was the last gold coin produced for circulation in America.

It was expected to sell somewhere between $10 million to $15 million.

Featuring Liberty on one side and an American eagle on the other, the rare Double Eagle almost doubled the previous record, Sotheby's, which organized the sale, said.

"The sale marks the second time this 1933 Double Eagle coin set a world record as the most valuable coin, having sold at Sotheby's New York in 2002 for $7.59 million in an auction," Sotheby's said in a statement.

The Double Eagle was one of three items for sale by owner, collector and shoe designer Stuart Weitzman.

The other two - a stamp from a former British colony and a sheet of the very first U.S. postage stamps dating back to 1918 - also attracted million-dollar bids.

The buyers of the Double Eagle and the stamp are anonymous, Sotheby's said.

All 1933 Double Eagles were destroyed and declared illegal after then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt took the nation off the gold standard to revive the country's economy from the Great Depression.

Weitzman will spend the proceeds on charitable ventures including medical research, his design school and a Jewish museum in Madrid, TRT World said.