Stolen

THE days of informal scrapping of precious metals such as gold and silver could well be numbered after a new Bill was put before Parliament on November 15 to tackle theft.

TWO years since it launched, the jewellery trade’s anti-crime alert network, SaferGems, has been helping to forge stronger links between the UK’s 43 different police forces.

ONE SaferGems alert featured two men wanted in connection with a jewellery theft at a discount jewellery shop in Spring Bank, Hull. During the incident one offender distracted the jeweller while the other stole jewellery to the value of £2300.

RAMRAIDERS have smashed their way into the Court Barn Museum, home to the Guild of Handicrafts collection, and stolen unique pieces of silver.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

FOURTEEN antiques of ‘significant, cultural and historic value’ have been recovered and two men arrested in connection with three high-profile country house thefts in 2009.

MORE details have come to light regarding the break-in at Long Street Antiques Centre in Tetbury during the early hours of Friday, August 26.

THE Westport Police Department is investigating the theft of two Chinese Louhan head sculptures, recently stolen from a private collection in Westport, Connecticut.

DURING the early hours of Tuesday, August 16, the Antique Textiles Company in Hampstead was vandalised – the victim of what is thought to be a revenge attack.

TWO men have been charged with handling stolen goods following the recovery of a number of pictures from the Halewood area of Liverpool.

THEFTS of old rhino horn trophies, wanted for their value in Chinese medicine, are continuing.

AUCTIONEERS in the south east of England are advised to exercise particular vigilance after a spate of saleroom break-ins.

HASLEMERE in Surrey has fallen victim to a gang targeting silver for melt, two weeks after thieves stole a rhino head from the town’s museum.

THIS bronze Zinfandel by equestrian sculptor Adrian Jones (1845-1938) was stolen earlier this month from a private house in Surrey.

A THEFT of a rhino head from a museum in Surrey is thought to have been motivated by the hugely valuable trade in rhino horn.

THE day after bullion prices peaked, thieves broke into an antiques centre in Cardiff and escaped with a haul of antique silver valued at thousands of pounds.

A £5000 reward has been offered for the return of the stock of Somerset jewellers Joseph Leonard, which was stolen in a raid on March 28.

A MAN who stole antiques worth more than £1.2m from country houses across the country has been jailed for nine years.

ON the evening of Tuesday, March 1 thieves broke into Willingham Auctions and stole four fruit-decorated Royal Worcester vases.