GOLD COINS MELTED DOWN

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

Last November, 483 Celtic gold coins were stolen from a Museum in Bavaria. Suspects were arrested this month with 18 gold lumps, and after being analyzed, it seems that they could be the result of the melting of the Manching gold hoard… It reminded me of another very sad story, the Great Robbery of 1831 in Paris.

On the morning of November 6, 1831, a considerable theft took place. The most beautiful gold coins of the "Imperial Suite" and several objects of high origin had disappeared. Very quickly, the employees noticed the disappearance of the Noyon vase, the great Patera of Rennes, the ring of Chidéric, the cup of Charlemagne, etc., plus hundreds of pieces that are difficult to estimate but which Mr Roux Seysset quickly valued at two million francs at the time.

(In 1831, the famous Patera of Rennes was part of the great theft committed at the Cabinet de Médailles, but it was found by a miracle on the banks of the Seine, under the Marie bridge some time later.) https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patère_de_Rennes

 

The first findings revealed that "the" (at this time we knew nothing) thief, had entered the Royal Library (Louis Philippe had been enthroned King in 1830) by climbing along the gutters to climb first on the roof of the "Treasury" located rue Neuf Des Petits Champs at the corner of rue de Richelieu where the Royal Library was installed. Afterwards, jumping from roof to roof, "he or they" had broken the window pane of an attic and from there entered the room of printed books.It remained to cross a thick oak door to enter the cabinet of medals, with a saw they had cut the door so as to let just one man pass .....They only had to play with the locks of the medallions: Loot two thousand gold medals and unique coins.

 

(Some of the 2000 gold coins stolen and probably melted down)

 

(It was only 3 years later that the list of stolen, missing or found objects was published in 1834 in a report "Report on the Royal Library". When we read that 2531 aureus in gold were stolen, in addition to the added value of these old coins, there are 20 kilos of gold missing plus 249 quinarius of gold….!)

 

Childéric's treasure, which included 80 kg of gold objects, was stolen from the Cabinet of Medals on that night, and the gold melted down to make ingots.  Only a few pieces (including two bees) were found in the Seine, where they had been thrown. There remains today of the treasure of beautiful engravings which were drawn up at the time of its discovery, and some facsimiles which the Habsburgs had made. However, some elements of the treasure were found and are now on display in the cabinet of coins and medals. The inventory of objects given to Louis XIV by Leopold was updated in 1978, which allows us to really know the importance of the theft.

 

 

(Bees from Childeric's treasure found in the Seine)

 

https://new.coinsweekly.com/news/celtic-coin-hoard-melted-down-into-lumps/

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Amazing story. Thanks. I have never seen the Patera of Rennes, very impressive. The theme is one of a nineteenth century Oceans Eleven.

[John Conduitt]

It seems that our heritage is at most danger when it's sat all together in poorly-guarded museums.

What we could do, in the interests of securing our heritage, is record and photograph everything in the museums, and then give it all to the general public to either keep or sell. There would then be no need for such large museums, since we'd all be able to see the objects in our hands or on the internet. We'd save money, no longer needing to maintain such huge public buildings. Best of all, our heritage would be so widely dispersed that these greedy lowlifes would never be able to steal it.

[Ricardo123]

2 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

I have never seen the Patera of Rennes, very impressive

Agreed. With 16 rare aureus, espléndido !

[ValiantKnight]

The worst for me is when they melted down all those Republican aureii that they found around 300 years ago. 2nd worst is this story that I read about a farmer that found some extremely rare early Frankish solidii that he ended up melting down.

[kapphnwn]

Last September I was at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. It was part of a two week vacay in Europe. I saw the Patera of Rennes but knew nothing about its rather more colorful history. This is my pic taken at the time  

[Rand]

Another major loss from the French Royal collection was the heaviest known Byzantine gold medallion of Justinian I, weighing 1/2 pound. The original was found near Caesarea in Cappadocia in 1751. Fortunately, the British Museum has an electrotype copy https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_B-11501

More coins were stolen from Musée de Douai in 2021, including a very rare and important Anastasius solidus from Houdain-lès-Bavai Hoard. https://coinsweekly.com/complete-celtic-hoard-stolen-from-museum/

 

 

[Al Kowsky]

3 hours ago, Rand said:

Another major loss from the French Royal collection was the heaviest known Byzantine gold medallion of Justinian I, weighing 1/2 pound. The original was found near Caesarea in Cappadocia in 1751. Fortunately, the British Museum has an electrotype copy https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_B-11501

More coins were stolen from Musée de Douai in 2021, including a very rare and important Anastasius solidus from Houdain-lès-Bavai Hoard. https://coinsweekly.com/complete-celtic-hoard-stolen-from-museum/

 

 

Pictured below is pair of electrotype shells of the famous Justinian medallion cited by Rand, that were auctioned by CNG Triton XXV, lot 1035, for $19,200.00 😮!

Edited July 21, 2023 by Al Kowsky
correction

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

DN IVSTINIANVS PP AVG / SALVS ET GLORIA ROMANORVM

 

That reverse type combines safety/health and glory....

[Marsyas Mike]

A sad topic to be sure.  A while back on CT I posted some book excerpts I found about people melting down gold Byzantine coins to make teeth in the 1920s.  Below is a chunk of that post.  The responses kind of puzzled me back then - let me just say I do not in any way condone the melting down of ancient coins for dentistry or any other purpose!  And despite the awfulness of the anecdotes here, it really is an interesting and readable book.  Anyway...

I recently came across an interesting book called Out of the Past, The Istanbul Grand Bazaar by Burton Y. Berry (Arco Publishing Co., 1977). Mr. Berry was in the US Consular service posted to Turkey, starting in 1928 (the Preface is dated 1974). He wrote this book about his experiences as a collector. Mostly the book deals with textiles, glass, metal, weapons, etc. - he collected a little of everything. But the last two chapters are devoted to coins, one on Byzantine, the other on Greek, including professional-grade old school black and white plates.

His anecdotes are both charming and horrifying. Apparently gold Byzantine coins pretty much flooded the Bazaar c. 1928-1940s, but with very few collectors, these were often just melted down after some desultory cherry-picking. Here is an excerpt:



More small-scale and pretty funny, I thought, was the practice of Anatolian peasants saving gold coins they came across to give to their dentist for some new gold teeth!


 

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/melting-down-byzantine-coins-for-gold-teeth-c-1928.350759/#post-3903815

 

[Troyden]

I know another story. Dozens of Prussian golden coins from early 19th century were melted down. 

But I totally approve it. How?

After the Partitions of Poland in late 18th century between Prussia, Austria and Russia, Polish territories were thoroughly looted. Among other things, Prussians stole took ownership of Polish crown jewels, which included the Crown of Boleslaus the Brave,  the coronation crown of Polish monarchs. And they melted it down in 1811, because why now. The gold was melted down and minted into coins, the jewels were dispersed.

In early 21st century, a replica of the Crown was made. The gold was deliberately obtained from melting down early 19th century Prussian gold coins in a hope that at least some of the original gold went back into the Crown.