Coin collection stolen after owner lured away by fake emergency
A Woodstock area man, whose extensive coin collection was stolen from his home after he was lured away by a fake emergency, is offering a reward for information leading to an arrest.
Gordon Price, of Richmond Corner, is putting up posters around town, offering $1,000. He is also asking merchants and banks to be on the lookout for the coins and bills, which date back to the 1930s.
Price says his collection, which he painstakingly built up over 30 years, was worth an estimated $20,000 and wasn't covered by his house insurance.
The collection was stolen during a break-in on Sunday night, after he received a phone call, purportedly from the local hospital.
"They said, 'We need you to come up to the hospital immediately,'" said Price.
Fearing it was about his 93-year-old mother, he rushed to the hospital, only to find out no one from there had called him.
"I was gone less than an hour. And I drove back home. And I come up on the patio and put the key in the door, and the door opened right up," he said.
"I realized immediately that my coin collection — that's the most valuable thing that I had in the house — and that was gone. My 30 years working on this, hoping to leave it to my two grandchildren.
"I sat on the couch for at least 15 minutes before I called 911. I was in shock, I couldn't realize what had happened. I just couldn't believe it."
Price says the face value of the coins and bills was about $10,000, but the actual value was almost double that, with some of the nickels, for example, being worth $15 each.
He started collecting the coins in the 1960s, when he was about 18 years old.
"My father started a store here in town, called Price's Grocery … and through the years I collected a lot of coins that were coming through the grocery store."
Price sold his first collection for a down payment on a house and started his second collection in 1982.
"The 30 years of time … that I put into it, and my son was always at me with, 'Dad, that's all you ever do is work on that coin collection.' Well that was my hobby," he said.
"I don't smoke, so this is what I spent my time and money on, working on this collection. It really meant a lot to me."
Price did manage to get back a 1954 $50 bill his mother had given him. It turned up at the bank.
"Unfortunately, I had to pay $50 to get it back," he said.
Price says he doesn't expect to get much more of the collection back, particularly since he didn't record all of the serial numbers of the $100, $50, and $20 bills, but he does hope someone will go to jail for the theft.
Woodstock RCMP continue to investigate.
