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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;curtislclay, post: 7476090, member: 89514&quot;][USER=82322]@Ed Snible[/USER]</p><p><br /></p><p>Ed, I&#039;m happy to say that according to Bastien, Trésor de Beaurains, no. 218, the Constantius I 10-aureus piece, liberation of London, was not stolen and melted down, but still exists in the collection of the Arras Museum.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bastien argues convincingly, in my opinion, that many large Arras gold medallions were <i>not </i>melted down as fakes as rumor has claimed, but that this was just a story made up by the finders, to distract attention from the large pieces that they had in fact found and intended to sell secretly to collectors or dealers!</p><p><br /></p><p>The most notorious case of numismatic theft and melting down occurred at the Paris cabinet in 1831: their entire collection of ancient gold coins and medallions was lost when a thief hid and had himself locked in at closing time, then exited with all of their gold coins through a window. Some of the more spectacular pieces, for example a 36-solidus gold medallion of Justinian I (Sear 134), are at least known from reproductions, namely the sulfur casts of Paris coins made by Mionnet before 1831 for sale to collectors.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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