About 75 years ago, the federal government minted a batch of $20 gold coins but decided not to release them publicly. Most were melted, but a few found their way out of the U.S. Mint. Those 1933 Saint Gaudens “double eagles” are among the most famous coins in history, and now they’re in the news again.

Back in 2003, Roy Langbord found not one but 10 of the coins in a long-forgotten family safe-deposit box. The only 1933 double eagle ever sold netted $7.6 million in 2002, the most for any single coin in history. Langbord and his family were suddenly rich.

Or so they thought. But when they gave the coins to the government to authenticate that they weren’t fakes, Uncle Sam kept them, claiming that Langbord’s grandfather, Israel Switt, had stolen them. The government offered no evidence to prove its claim — and apparently has none — so now the case is in court.

It’s entirely possible that Switt was a criminal and stole the coins. But in America, he’s innocent until proven guilty — and his family members are definitely innocent.”Maybe they were stolen in the 1930s,” a leading numismatist told The New York Times, “but they certainly weren’t stolen by the people who are holding them now.”

Amen to that. At a minimum, the government should do what it did in 2002 — let the coins go to auction and split the proceeds 50-50 with the family. But I hope the family gets all of they money. They deserve it after the government’s greedy gold coin grab.