SWIPING THE MILLION-DOLLAR GOLD COIN

Harvey Stack writes:

In 2007 the Royal Canadian Mint had a wild idea—create the world's first million-dollar coin. It would be 99.999% pure gold, 220 pounds, and as tall as a car tire. Five so-called Big Maple Leaf coins were purchased by investors.

In 2010 a private collector in Düsseldorf loaned his Big Maple Leaf coin to Berlin's Bode Museum.

Curators placed it behind bulletproof glass in the middle of Room 243, where the Bode keeps some of its most valuable coins.

It sat there for seven years.

The entire break-in took only 16 minutes.

To read the complete article, see:
It Took Only 16 Minutes for Thieves to Swipe a Million-Dollar Gold Coin (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-28/it-took-only-16-minutes-for-thieves-to-swipe-a-million-dollar-gold-coin)

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
GIANT GOLD MAPLE LEAF COIN STOLEN (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n14a11.html)
ARRESTS MADE IN THEFT OF BIG MAPLE LEAF (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n29a08.html)
GIANT COIN THEFT FAMILY PROPERTIES SEIZED (https://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n29a37.html)

These model trains often require decades to build and are considered priceless by their owners. At market, they can fetch tens of thousands of pounds. And though they're small, one-twelfth the scale of a normal train, they're not that small. The locomotives—which burn model-train-size bricks of coal, carried in model-train-scale tenders and fed with tiny shovels—weigh hundreds of pounds each. They're powerful enough to pull eight children, who ride, straddling passenger cars, around a special narrow-gauge track at 8 mph.

The burglars scoured the grounds, which belong, along with the locomotives, to members of the Gravesend Model Marine & Engineering Society (GMMES), a 66-year-old British railway club. They found a hoist, a wheelbarrow, and a set of the club's walkie-talkies.

To read the complete article, see:
The Great Model Train Robbery (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-28/britain-s-great-model-train-robbery-remains-an-unsolved-crime)

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