Massive Canadian gold coin worth millions stolen from German museum

Not to worry, RCM can make another one by April 1.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Size doesn't matter, weight is the problem. I've just booked a flight from Berlin to Acapulco but my check-in baggage exceeds 100kg. Now I am trying to explain that I can't just "split it" into two bags :-D

 

Look for the people with the hernias.

 

Wouldn't that just make the thief's day. You get to the airport and have to pay an extra 200 bucks for your overweight surplus army duffel bag. Really be annoying if they ran up all the credit cards pulling off the heist and had no cash.

 

Easy, that's a carry on item. When they ask why I'm wincing and walking slowly, it's because I ate a bad bowl of goulash last night.

 

It IS the size of a tire; those Mounties are 8'4 and 8'1.

 

Well those tires on those Euro cars are tiny. It's not like these giant Bush Mobile SUV's that we drive in the US.

 

As we know, five of these coins were made. The current owners are: Queen Elizabeth II, Oro Direct (a Spanish PM dealer), two anonymous buyers from the UAE, and Boris Fuchsmann, a German-Ukrainian real estate investor in Düsseldorf. And it was Fuchsmann's coin that was stolen in Berlin. Here is a short bio.

The police and the prosecutors (Staatsanwaltschaft) provided some - as in, a little bit - more information about how the thieves could have worked. They probably left the museum (with the coin) the way they got in, along the railroad tracks to the nearby Monbijou Park where they climbed down. No info about how the coin made it to the ground, but they might just have dropped it. (Why care about any possible damage?) They probably had a car parked there. And even more probably they had insider information ...

Christian

 

I seen the other examples here in Ottawa/Canada. This thing does not impress me, on the otherhand the largest gold coin struck by Emperor Jahangir/ Mughal Empire/ 1000 Mohurs weighs 35 pounds....that one in impressive. My favorite "big" gold coins are the beautifull 100 Dukaten struck under different rulers/nations/ like the 1621 Polish/ 1683 Transylvania/1629 Bohemia and etc. If I had Donald Trumps money I would have those on my shopping list

 

Would you tweet when you bought one?

 

Yes, if I have that kind of money I certainly have the money for much better security than that museum had

 

The museum did and does have the money for appropriate insurance. Of course it is always easy to say "I would have done things better" after the fact, and of course there is now some discussion about how security - which obviously had its flaws - can be further improved. But if you have cooperative insiders (and according to police and DA that is quite likely), getting around any "obstacle" is much easier ...

Christian

 

I would generally agree with this. However given the size, where were the silent alarms ect? I do have questions about the security they actually had for over a 200 pound item to be removed before police arrived, their response time is a question for me as well given the size of the item.

Very few places can afford security to keep people out entirely, but any museum should be able to afford and have security that allows police to show up before a 200 plus pound item is removed

 

One wonders what will happen when the thieves start cutting up their "coin" and discover that it is a gold-plated fake.

 

Do we need to mention again that it was very likely an inside job? Apparently no alarms were triggered, because they were deactivated or otherwise circumvented, so why should the police show up?

 

No doubt disposal was planned before the heist. They'll have to cut it with alloy to make it less pure. Then they'll probably cast it into small Eiffel Tower figurines that'll accidentally be sold to tourists.



They could also plan an anonymous recovery of the coin. First, however, they'd bore holes in the edge, into which tungsten rods would be inserted. The holes would then be repaired with a small amount of the extracted gold. Probably a higher risk for a lower reward, though.

 

Yesterday Berlin's public transport company BVG wrote via Twitter, "in light of current events," that the BVG ticket machines do not accept 100 kilo coins. Police then added, also via Twitter: "You are however welcome to change your 100 kilo coins at any local police station."

Story in English: http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/page/4?&id=4622
Twitter/BVG: https://twitter.com/BVG_Kampagne/status/847028567229784064
(in German, with some funny replies like, when I use it to buy a ticket, will I get my own subway train? Answer: No, but a free ride in your personal police car. etc.)

Christian

 

LOL!!!

 

I tried to post this in the ancient forum but the thread was apparently locked. Here is a link to the original thread describing my visit to the museum.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/st...ots-of-greek-coin-photos.268686/#post-2237430

There are some killer ancient coins that the thief could have slipped into his pocket.



And there are some interesting modern World coins:

And there was the big gold coin:


There are even coins of the United States on display. This museum is a must-see for anyone visiting Berlin.