Three sisters were going through their late mother’s things in 2021 when they found a plastic bag stuffed with a few yellowed newspaper clippings.

Before reading those clippings, the sisters had no idea that their great-grandfather, Lynn G. Barnard, once owned one of the world’s rarest and most valuable coins.

The famed 1933 Double Eagle $20 gold coin had once been the centerpiece of Barnard’s collection and had spent several years in Barnard’s Midtown house to be admired by fellow coin collectors — until the U.S. government intervened.

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