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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;willieboyd2, post: 2199962, member: 4910&quot;]I recently read a book titled <i>The Miss Stone Affair : America&#039;s First Modern Hostage Crisis</i> by Teresa Carpenter, which is about the 1901 kidnapping of a American protestant missionary, Miss Ellen Stone, in Ottoman Macedonia by a band of armed revolutionaries.</p><p><br /></p><p>Miss Stone had been in the area for a long time, spoke their languages, and sympathized with their cause, which caused some suspicions later.</p><p><br /></p><p>The kidnappers also took a local woman to serve as a companion for their hostage; she turned out to be pregnant. They moved around the local mountains to avoid capture. The kidnappers took a long time to negotiate the ransom; enough time to add a baby girl to the hostages.</p><p><br /></p><p>The story got a lot of publicity in the United States, President Theodore Roosevelt was asked to send either US troops or the Navy in, but he wasn&#039;t able to resolve the situation. Roosevelt made a statement that American women shouldn&#039;t go into these wild places. The Ottoman Turkish government was also involved as some of the territory was Ottoman.</p><p><br /></p><p>A lot of diplomatic maneuvering and dealing with the kidnappers finally resulted in a ransom payment made in early 1902 and the release of the women and baby.</p><p><br /></p><p>The ransom amount was 14,500 Turkish gold lira (about $63,800 US dollars) and was paid in gold Napoleons, which weighed around 105 kg or 232 lbs.</p><p><br /></p><p>What is a &quot;Gold Napoleon&quot;?</p><p><br /></p><p>A Gold Napoleon is basically a French 20 Franc gold coin with a picture of Napoleon I or III on the obverse (There was a Napoleon II but he didn&#039;t issue coins).</p><p><br /></p><p>More generally, the coin is any French 20 Franc gold coin, including the varieties with angels or roosters on them. An even more inclusive definition is any French gold coin.</p><p>Gold Napoleons are 21mm in diameter, weigh 6.45gm, and were worth around US $4 in 1901.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gold Napoleons sometimes turn up in literature, including Arthur Conan Doyle&#039;s Sherlock Holmes story &quot;The Red-Headed League&quot;. In the story, crooks tunnel into a bank to steal a large amount of the coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>A silly reason for wanting a coin but I had to have some:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.brianrxm.com/posts/post_france_franc20_1810.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>France Gold Napoleon 20 Francs 1810 - Mint W (Lille), Privy mark caduceus, 6.39gm</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.brianrxm.com/posts/post_france_franc20_1863.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>France Gold Napoleon 20 Francs 1863 - Mint BB (Strasbourg), Privy mark anchor, 6.41gm</p><p><br /></p><p>Gold Napoleons also turned up in a recent news story about a German man who found 217 21mm gold coins buried during the Nazi era. 74 of the coins were Napoleons.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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