Thieves Take a Chunk of Change, All 221 Pounds of It, From a Berlin Museum<br />The Royal Canadian Mint created its first million-dollar coin, in Canadian dollars, as a demonstration in 2007 — "because we can,"<br />the mint says on its website — to draw attention to its series of more modestly sized, if still costly, pure gold coins.<br />But apparently it can be pinched: The world’s largest gold coin, a 221-pound Canadian monster called<br />the Big Maple Leaf, was stolen overnight from the Bode Museum in Berlin, the police said on Monday.<br />Their theory for now is that the thieves dragged the coin through the museum, out the window and then along the railway track, possibly reaching a park on the opposite bank of the river near the Hackescher Markt, a public square in Berlin<br />that is home to a number of late-night bars and cafes.<br />Mr. Reeves said that the mint, which still has the first coin "safe<br />and sound in our high security vault," moves it around in a trunk with casters similar to those used by traveling music acts and stage shows.<br />And though it weighs about as much as a refrigerator, somehow thieves apparently managed to lug it through the museum<br />and up at least one floor to get it out of a window at the back of the building.<br />The Bode Museum, which sits on Museum Island in the Spree River, is part of the complex belonging<br />to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, or in German, the Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
