Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 14, 2010 10:31:08 GMT 12
I was searching for something completely different and found this news item from October 2009. I never heard about this at all at the time. Does anyone know if any further recoveries have been made? Some of these militaria collectors are evil, stealing from museums.
www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/3006028/More-military-medals-stolen
More military medals stolen
By NIKKI PRESTON - Waikato Times Last updated 13:00 28/10/2009SharePrint Text Size Relevant offers
The loss of 30 war medals – apparently stolen – from Te Awamutu Museum has shocked museum staff and RSA members.
The loss was discovered only after one of its medals was put up for sale by an American collector on eBay earlier this year.
It prompted a complete audit of the museum's inventory which has shown that 30 of its 175 historical medals are unaccounted for.
The missing medals all have links with Te Awamutu and many were given to the Museum Trust Board, which owns the collection, by family members and other parties and organisations.
Waipa District Council museum and heritage manager Jan White said she had no idea how the medals had gone missing, but she believed they had disappeared between 1991 and 1996, although she could not be certain.
Te Awamutu Police Senior Sergeant Dave Simes confirmed police had received a large amount of information from the museum which they would begin working through.
Mrs White said that the medals went missing at a time when the museum was being run by volunteers. Since the Waipa District Council took over managing the museum in 2005 "security was superb".
"It has nothing to do with the current staff it was so long ago," she said.
The museum had introduced a range of controls including random audits.
The full inventory audit at Te Awamutu Museum is expected to take at least three years.
The 10,000 pieces will be checked against historical documents and registers.
"It's taken six months to do a full investigation of 175 medals," Mrs White said.
"It's a huge task. It's not something that's done in five minutes."
The council and museum were this morning unable to provide details of all the medals.
The first of the missing medals will be handed back to the museum on Armistice Day on November 11.
Te Awamutu RSA bought the medal for $800 from Auckland collector Phillip Beattie.
He had bought the Boer War medal after he researched its background when he found it had been listed for sale on internet trading site Ebay by an American collector.
The South African war medal originally belonged to George Osborne and will be reunited with his two World War I medals also in the museum's care.
The RSA is also paying for a headstone to be put on Mr Osborne's unmarked grave.
Te Awamutu RSA vice-president Terry Findlay said he had been made aware only in the past few weeks that more medals had gone missing.
He said the RSA would not have the funds to buy all 30 back if they were located.
Waipa deputy mayor Peter Lee was "gobsmacked" to learn such a large number had gone missing, pointing out that it was not just the National Army Museum in Waiouru that had medals stolen.
"We should be going out and making every effort to recover these," he said.
The stolen medals at the Te Awamutu Museum and the National Army Museum in Waiouru, which lost 96 in 2007, should be a loud wake-up call for all museums to keep their inventory updated to ensure the medals were secure in their care. he said.
Eight Victoria Crosses and one VC and bar were among the 96 medals stolen from the Waiouru museum in 2007.
A depositions hearing for one of the two men accused of those thefts is under way at the Wanganui District Court this week.
Another man, who also has name suppression, was earlier sentenced to 11 years' jail for the theft, which shocked the country and led to a large police operation to recover the medals. The museum has since had a security overhaul.
www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/3006028/More-military-medals-stolen
More military medals stolen
By NIKKI PRESTON - Waikato Times Last updated 13:00 28/10/2009SharePrint Text Size Relevant offers
The loss of 30 war medals – apparently stolen – from Te Awamutu Museum has shocked museum staff and RSA members.
The loss was discovered only after one of its medals was put up for sale by an American collector on eBay earlier this year.
It prompted a complete audit of the museum's inventory which has shown that 30 of its 175 historical medals are unaccounted for.
The missing medals all have links with Te Awamutu and many were given to the Museum Trust Board, which owns the collection, by family members and other parties and organisations.
Waipa District Council museum and heritage manager Jan White said she had no idea how the medals had gone missing, but she believed they had disappeared between 1991 and 1996, although she could not be certain.
Te Awamutu Police Senior Sergeant Dave Simes confirmed police had received a large amount of information from the museum which they would begin working through.
Mrs White said that the medals went missing at a time when the museum was being run by volunteers. Since the Waipa District Council took over managing the museum in 2005 "security was superb".
"It has nothing to do with the current staff it was so long ago," she said.
The museum had introduced a range of controls including random audits.
The full inventory audit at Te Awamutu Museum is expected to take at least three years.
The 10,000 pieces will be checked against historical documents and registers.
"It's taken six months to do a full investigation of 175 medals," Mrs White said.
"It's a huge task. It's not something that's done in five minutes."
The council and museum were this morning unable to provide details of all the medals.
The first of the missing medals will be handed back to the museum on Armistice Day on November 11.
Te Awamutu RSA bought the medal for $800 from Auckland collector Phillip Beattie.
He had bought the Boer War medal after he researched its background when he found it had been listed for sale on internet trading site Ebay by an American collector.
The South African war medal originally belonged to George Osborne and will be reunited with his two World War I medals also in the museum's care.
The RSA is also paying for a headstone to be put on Mr Osborne's unmarked grave.
Te Awamutu RSA vice-president Terry Findlay said he had been made aware only in the past few weeks that more medals had gone missing.
He said the RSA would not have the funds to buy all 30 back if they were located.
Waipa deputy mayor Peter Lee was "gobsmacked" to learn such a large number had gone missing, pointing out that it was not just the National Army Museum in Waiouru that had medals stolen.
"We should be going out and making every effort to recover these," he said.
The stolen medals at the Te Awamutu Museum and the National Army Museum in Waiouru, which lost 96 in 2007, should be a loud wake-up call for all museums to keep their inventory updated to ensure the medals were secure in their care. he said.
Eight Victoria Crosses and one VC and bar were among the 96 medals stolen from the Waiouru museum in 2007.
A depositions hearing for one of the two men accused of those thefts is under way at the Wanganui District Court this week.
Another man, who also has name suppression, was earlier sentenced to 11 years' jail for the theft, which shocked the country and led to a large police operation to recover the medals. The museum has since had a security overhaul.
'I am a professional. What do you think your doing suggesting I'm wrong - your just an amateur'. Yeah had that response. In one case I had to produce over a period of months a copy of a document from a Council archive, then a photo and finally an old film clip before they would accept a story they had published was incorrect. The funniest thing was they would not discuss their source(s) yet kept questioning mine. 
