Loading ...Gold nuggets stolen from Wells Fargo museum worth $10,000
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Thieves in a stolen SUV smashed through the glass doors of the Wells Fargo History Museum in downtown San Francisco before dawn Tuesday and made off with up to 10 ounces of historic gold nuggets worth roughly $10,000, police said.
But rare coin dealer Don Kagin says the robbers may have difficulty selling the nuggets unless they melt them down. Word of the heist was spreading through the rare coin community, Kagin said, and dealers will be on the lookout for nuggets and coins with historical significance that suddenly appear on the market.
The three masked thieves held a security guard at gunpoint, took 4 to 10 ounces of gold from an exhibit case and got away in a waiting sedan, police said. The guard wasn’t injured.
Robbers in Northern California have targeted precious metals in museum displays before and the tactics of the heist have marked other recent robberies in the area.
Fred Holabird, a mining geologist and an owner of a rare and unique collectibles business in Reno, Nevada, called the theft a tragedy because the nuggets could be marked with the year and place where they were mined and even the miner who unearthed them.
“This is such bad news from my viewpoint,” he said. read more