Berlin police say thieves broke into the German capital's Bode Museum and made off with a massive 100-kilogram gold coin issued by the Royal Canadian Mint that's worth millions.

Dubbed the "Big Maple Leaf" and measuring three-centimetres thick with a diameter of 53 centimetres, the coin has a portrait of the Queen on one side and maple leaves on the other.

It has a face value of $1 million, but by weight alone it would be worth approximately $4 million US at market prices.

The museum, which has one of the largest coin collections in the world, said on its website that the coin has been on loan in its numismatic collection since 2010.

It was first issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in May 2007 and was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity: 99.999 per cent gold.

Spokesman Stefen Petersen said thieves apparently entered through a window at about 3:30 a.m. local time on Monday, broke into a cabinet where the coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived.

A ladder was found by nearby railway tracks.

Royal Canadian Mint spokesman Alex Reeves said the stolen coin does not belong to the mint. After creating the original (which is in storage in Ottawa), the mint manufactured five more that were sold to interested private individuals.

The owner of the stolen coin is unknown.</s>BERLIN -- A massive gold coin issued by the Royal Canadian Mint has been stolen from a museum in Germany.

Police in Berlin say thieves broke into the German capital's Bode Museum before dawn Monday and made off with the 100-kilogram gold coin worth millions of dollars.

The "Big Maple Leaf" coin, which is three-centimetres thick with a diameter of 53 centimetres, has a portrait of the Queen on one side and maple leaves on the other.

The museum, which has one of the largest coin collections in the world, said on its website that coin has been on loan in its numismatic collection since 2010.

It was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 and it is in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

Royal Canadian Mint spokesman Alex Reeves says the coin does not belong to the mint and the owner is unknown.

He said it has a face value of $1 million, but by weight alone it would be worth almost US$4.5 million at market prices.

The mint is still in possession of the original "Big Maple Leaf" coin, which Reeve said was made 10 years ago when the mint launched its one-ounce gold bullion coins.

Reeves said once the original "Big Maple Leaf" coin was unveiled, several people came forward asking to buy one.

"So then it became a product that was made on demand and customers who made a non-refundable deposit on the coin had one manufactured for them," Reeves said.

A total of five coins were produced and sold that way, he said. The one stolen in Germany is one of those five.

Museum spokesman Stefen Petersen said Monday the thieves apparently entered through a window at about 3:30 a.m., broke into a cabinet where the coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived.

He added that a ladder was found by nearby railway tracks.

With files from The Associated Press</s>Berlin police say thieves broke into the German capital’s Bode Museum and made off with a massive 100-kilogram gold coin issued by the Royal Canadian Mint that’s worth millions.

“Big Maple Leaf,” which is three-centimetres thick with a diameter of 53 centimetres, has a portrait of the Queen on one side and maple leaves on the other.

It has a face value of $1 million, but by weight alone it would be worth almost US$4.5 million at market prices.

The museum says the coin is in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

Spokesman Stefen Petersen said thieves apparently entered through a window at about 3:30 a.m. Monday, broke into a cabinet where the coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived.</s>Police in Berlin say the “Big Maple Leaf” coin, which was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, was stolen by thieves from the German capital’s Bode Museum.

The heist has already been compared to the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa or the 1990 robbery of 13 masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which saw thieves take Vermeers and the only known seascape by Rembrandt.

“It could be melted into slabs already,” said Chris Mathers , who worked undercover for years against organized crime groups and now heads a Toronto-based security company.

The giant coin was stolen this week from the Bode Museum in Berlin.

A former RCMP organized crime specialist has some ideas of what might have happened to the world’s largest and purest gold coin, a 221-pound Canadian whopper called The Big Maple Leaf.

Mathers said he wasn’t surprised that the Berlin thief or thieves seemed to know exactly what they wanted when they scaled a step ladder and entered the 113-year-old museum.

Old coins are fascinating, but hard to fence, Mathers said.

The thief or thieves bypassed paintings, sculptures and 102,000 coins from ancient Greece and about 50,000 Roman coins for the giant gold coin that was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007.

Their gold and silver purity also might not be high if they were melted down.

The Big Maple Leaf is almost pure gold, making it into the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

While the coin’s face value is 1 million Canadian dollars, its gold content alone is worth about six times as much.

Since leaving the Mounties, Mathers has worked security around the world, including for African gold mines.

He said there are plenty of people on the black market who would be eager to buy the coin, which is big but not humungous: three-centimetres thick with a diameter of 53 centimetres.

It weighs about as much as a refrigerator, which is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one, for two fit men.

“Two guys could do it, if you don’t have to take it too far,” Mathers said. “Two fit guys could easily carry that. You can roll the thing. They should have made it square. It’d be harder to steal.”

He doubts the caper took more than 10 minutes from the time the thief or thieves broke into the museum until the exit.

“You don’t want to be hanging around,” Mathers said.

The Bode Museum sits on Museum Island in the Spree River, in front of a commuter railway.

German police said on Twitter that the thieves likely used a ladder, which was later found at a nearby rail track at about 3.30 a.m.

Police declined to comment on the museum’s security cameras or alarm systems.

There’s a chance they might try to ransom the gold back, but that involves a high level of risk.

Far better to sell it to someone in the gold business on the international black market, Mathers said.

“There are plenty of people who will take it.”

Mathers recalled an armoured car robbery in the Hamilton area that netted about $1-million in Loonies.

“There was $1 million, but it probably weighed close to a ton,” Mathers said.

Those thieves were quite easily caught, he said.

Mathers suspects the Berlin thieves had help from someone who works for the museum or a former employee.

He also suspects that if the thief or thieves are caught, it’s because they didn’t plan their escape well enough.

“Somebody will do something stupid,” Mathers said.</s>‘The Big Maple Leaf’, the huge gold coin, was stolen from the Bode Museum early this morning.

Issued by the Royal Canadian Mint, the coin is 3-centimetres thick and about the width of a car tire.

Certified by Guinness World Records due to its size and 999.99/1000 gold purity.

It’s a $1-million (Cdn) coin, but, due to the 100 kg weight of high-purity gold, it may be worth more than $5-million (Cdn) by current gold prices in Germany.

It had been in a bullet-proof glass-enclosed display at the musuem, which is located at the edge of an island in the Spree River, in the middle of the German capital.

Martin Halweg, a spokesman with the German police, told The Globe and Mail newspaper, that the thieves arrived Monday between 3:20 and 3:45am.

They apparently used a three-metre long ladder to a window to get into the museum and then a wheelbarrow to carry the coin away.

“Based on the information we have so far we believe that the thief, maybe thieves, broke open a window in the back of the museum next to the railway tracks,” police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel told Reuters. “They then managed to enter the building and went to the coin exhibition.

The German newspaper Bild, quoting unnamed police sources, said the robbers found an opportunity in construction work at the museum. They also said the chance of finding the coin are minimal as it can be melted immediately.

The police communiqué asked the public to report any offers of large volumes of gold for sale.

The coin was in the Bode Museum’s Numismatic Collection since December 2010.

Minted in Ottawa in 2007, with the profile of Queen Elizabeth II, it was certified by Guinness World Records due to its size and 999.99/1000 gold purity.

It was one in a set of five related giant gold coins the Royal Canadian Mint made to highlight its new line of high-purity bullions.</s>Picture taken in Vienna, Austria on June 25, 2010 shows experts of an Austrian art forwarding company holding one of the world's largest gold coins, a 2007 Canadian $ 1,000,000 ''Big Maple Leaf''. An identical coin was stolen from Berlin's Bode Museum on March... A Canadian gold coin named "Big Maple Leaf" which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin's Bode Museum.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Reuters.</s>A Canadian gold coin named “Big Maple Leaf” which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin’s Bode Museum.</s>A Canadian gold coin named "Big Maple Leaf" which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin's Bode Museum. The coin is made out of pure gold, weighs about 100 kilos and has a face value of around $1 million.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Yahoo!.</s>The world’s largest gold coin, a 221-pound Canadian monster called the Big Maple Leaf, was stolen overnight from the Bode Museum in Berlin, police said Monday.

BERLIN — You could never palm it, flip it or plunk it into a vending machine, but apparently it can be pinched: The world’s largest gold coin, a 221-pound Canadian monster called the Big Maple Leaf, was stolen overnight from the Bode Museum in Berlin, police said Monday.

The coin is about 21 inches in diameter and more than 1 inch thick, with a head of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and a maple leaf on the other. Its face value is 1 million Canadian dollars, but by weight of gold alone it is worth much more than that — as much as $4.5 million at current market prices. The Royal Canadian Mint struck one as a demonstration in 2007 — “Because we can,” the mint says on its website — and then made a few more for well-heeled collectors to buy; five have been sold so far.

Berlin police said in a statement that burglars had apparently broken in through a window above the commuter-railway tracks at the back of the museum. Officers found a ladder on the elevated railway’s roadbed. Police declined to say whether there were security cameras monitoring that window, but they said the coin had been kept behind bulletproof glass.

The museum is near the Hackescher Markt, a public square in Berlin that is home to a number of late-night bars and cafes. Police appealed for clues from anyone who had been in the area.

Given the coin’s weight, authorities said they suspect that more than one person must have been involved in the crime. A police team that specializes in art crimes has been called in to investigate.

The Bode Museum is part of the complex belonging to the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, on an island in the Spree River. In addition to paintings, sculptures and other works of art, the museum displays what it says is one of the largest collections of coins and medals in the world, with about 500,000 objects. The Big Maple Leaf appeared to be the only thing the thieves took.</s>A precious gold coin that’s in the Guinness Book of Records for its unsurpassed purity was stolen early Monday from a museum in Germany.

The coin, which weighs more than 200 pounds and has a diameter of more than 20 inches, was taken from the Bode Museum in Berlin after 2 a.m. local time.

Nicknamed “the “Big Maple Leaf,” the coin was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, ahead of Queen Elizabeth II’s state visit to Germany. It has a face value of more than $1 million and a purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

The coin had been in the Bode Museum collection since 2010.

After the theft, Berlin police say a ladder was found near railway tracks close to the museum. They are investigating if it was used in the burglary.

The coin has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and a maple leaf on the other.
The Big Maple Leaf, a solid gold 1 million dollar Canadian coin weighing 100 kilograms (220 lb), is stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany.