Frankel, Alison

PERSONAL: Married Dan Fagin; children: Anna and Lily. Education: Graduated from Dartmouth College.

ADDRESSES: Home— Sea Cliff, NY. E-mail— [email protected]

CAREER: Writer. American Lawyer, senior writer.

WRITINGS

Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: As a senior writer for American Lawyer, Alison Frankel has written on topics ranging from controversial judicial rulings to the top-grossing U.S. law firms. Her research skills as a journalist served her well on another newsworthy story, this one the focus of her first book:Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin. In the field of numanistics (the collection and preservation of coins), the Double Eagle was long considered the “Holy Grail” among collectors, since the 1933 gold coin was the last of its kind made in the United States and was never placed into official circulation. In Double Eagle, Frankel shares background information on its design and production and recounts with dramatic flair a story spanning seven decades as the only known surviving Double Eagle is chased across continents, ultimately surfacing at a 2002 Sotheby’s auction.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that “Frankel demonstrates her journalistic skill with sparkling accounts,” further adding that the book is a “great read for the obsessed collector and general public alike.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described Double Eagle as “a gripping read” and a “readable and authoritative history of a phenomenon for the numismatic ages.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2006, review of Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin, p. 333.

Publishers Weekly, February 13, 2006, review of Double Eagle, p. 71.

ONLINE

American Lawyer, http://www.americanlawyer.com/ (November 26, 2006).