Egypt has asked the United States to block the sale of a rare 25-dollar gold piece that belonged to the late Egyptian king Farouk, the culture minister said on Tuesday.
"We have told the American authorities that the coin was stolen and taken out of Egypt illegally in 1954 and we are trying to recover it," Faruq Hosni told reporters. The coin is set to be auctioned Tuesday at Sotheby's auction house in New York, he added, according to AFP.
King Farouk, who was ousted in the 1952 Egyptian revolution, was a noted coin collector and had purchased the 25-dollar gold piece in the year 1944 through his embassy in Washington. The coin was only produced for a few months in 1933, said the secretary general of Egypt higher antiquities council, Zahi Hawwas.
The coin features a torch-holding figure inspired by the Statue of Liberty, with an olive branch in the left hand and, in the background, 48 stars representing the number of US states in 1944. The coin is 90 percent gold and 10 percent copper. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
