Gold Bar Worth $500K Stolen From Key West Museum

http://cbs4.com/local/gold.bar.theft.2.1869470.html

"It was a piece of history worth half-a-million dollars that you could reach out and touch, part of the treasure from the galleon Santa Maria .

The 74.85-ounce bar had been on display at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum for more than 20 years and is worth about $550,000, according to museum officials.
"

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I believe we'll soon be reading about the arrests. The museum was always a great place to visit..

Clinker

 

The article makes me think I should be scuba diving instead of roll searching.

 

Its unfortuante, and although this appears to be two outside people who stole it, I can't help but think this is an inside job. This isn't the first thing to be stolen out of the Museum. I remember going there 10+ years ago and there was a gorgeous gold cross with lots of gems on it on display. It was actually a replica; the original had been stolen from the museum.

Too many of the "big pieces" just seem to get stolen from this museum in broad daylight.

 

Last time I checked, they don't let you feel the rough texture of Monet's artwork or wear the jewelry that belonged to Tutankhamun. Maybe this museum could learn a few things...

 

wow...interesting the insurance co. is offering reward 1/50th of value (still alot for someone like me tho ) also the time it was stolen is interesting 5:18 pm a bold move in daylight but for 75 oz. of gold ... I bet they wont melt it though...they dont seem that smart to begin with...I mean hiding a bar like that is not easy, they will either be caught in a week or never heard from again

 

That is so sad that some crazy guy would just walk in and literally take half a million dollars. I guess that some people just think that that is the way the world works, sadly. (and you know what is strange? Research show that the time of the week were there are less robberies than any other time are late Wednesday afternoons from 4 to 9pm!)

 

If I was letting anybody touch a gold bar worth $500k, they'd have to cut some welds to get it off the display.

 

Doug said it all !

I think It would have hit the smelting pot already. I know they would lose a ton of value, but smelted into ingots, it would be difficult to identify and they did steal it. So smelted, they still could get 70k or so and it's gone !

Of course, a private buyer may have placed an order for it ?

But security seemed lacking. I mean, this thing is valuable. Right ?

Just a thought.

gary

 

Been there...cool museum. Hope they catch them. TC

 

Sounds like there had to be some inside help. The bar was inside a heavy plexiglass case. It would have been extremely hard to break it.



They also have security video of them.

 

^^thats the bar?

if i was that little kid i would have razor blades in my palms scraping chunks and scraps off!!

i would like to think it would be an inside job, considering how hard you would think it would be to steal something like this. but in reality, professional thieves can be very very good at what they do. there used to be a guy that would come to some place i used to work and take orders for whatever people wanted(i never did this, no matter how big the company, you are still hurting an individual person) he would go to places i couldn't imagine being able to walk out with the big items. never got caught either, well as long as i worked there.

i hope they catch them before it gets put in the pot, but it may be to late...

 

They say someone "baffled" security, making me think that two guys posed as directors/curators and took advantage of a new security guard.

 

Ahh, the Mel Fisher museum, ripping people off of over 20 years. What goes around comes around. I hope they don't find it.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

I lifted the bar and met Mel Fisher a long time ago. WoW.

 

Yes, that museum has been scalping tourists with overpriced Atocha coins since it opened. You have no idea how many times a month someone comes into a store with an Atocha coin they bought 18 years for $1000 wanting thousands for it. Still, 18 years later the coin is worth less than what they paid for it. (Atocha coins have gone up several times is price since then, they just cost too much at the museum to realize that profit) To this day they sell them 3-4x what the market value is.

It's good for our business when they visit our store in St. Augustine after recently visiting Key West and seeing how expensive some people sell them for.

 

From the photo it looks like someone could stick a simple bar-holding & bar-cutting device into the hole & take it out in pieces. You could probably cut it into a half dozen pieces in less than a minute with the right hand-held device. Is that how they got it or did they take the entire display?