by Annika Backe
February 4, 2016 – In the afternoon of January 30, 2016, local police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, were called to Jim Coad Rare Coin Shop after an alarm had been activated. Witnesses saw a scuffle breaking out in the shop and the owner being hit in the head with a blunt object. The coin dealer took his weapon and started firing. One of the thieves suffered severe wounds.
The other suspects brought him to a local Women’s Hospital where the staff then noticed coins and gold bars falling out the man’s pockets. Although an emergency surgery was initiated right away the robber died. The coin shop owner, on the other hand, is recovering. He is not expected to face charges.
This robbery evokes sad memories of an incident that happened in Berlin in March 2013, when a 73 year-old owner of a coin shop was robbed. He later succumbed to his severe head injuries. And only recently we had to report about a thief robbing coin shops in Aarau, Switzerland. The young man turned himself in.
It is clear to see: The number of attacks on coin dealers is increasing. The thieves are getting more and more reckless; they rob shops during opening hours, in the presence of staff and customers. They are using increasingly brutal tactics. The victims are first and foremost those coin dealers who have not yet taken necessary precautions.
Please find the website of Jim Coad Rare Coins here.
Here you can watch a TV report on the robbery on KRQE News 13.
Reactions of private coin collectors can be found in this forum.
The thief of Aarau was at the center of this CoinsWeekly news.
And here you can read about the attack on the Berlin coin dealer. By the way, in the meantime the offender has been caught. Due to his schizophrenia he is not in jail, but in a psychiatric hospital.