Conman steals rare coins

confidence. I had no idea he planned to take my coins.

‘‘I took him on trust and I got to know him. I was helping him with his coins.’’

Lindsay declined to say whether he had insurance, but said his security had changed so ‘‘what [George] did can never be done again’’.

‘‘I have had to be more careful since George came, but I still want to be friendly and open, because that is my way.

‘‘But when you are friendly it leaves a chink in your armour, and people can exploit that, if they wish.’’

Lindsay said he wanted the man to return the coins, which would be impossible to sell.

‘‘I have an emotional attachment through some of the coins, to the people. Some of them come from collectors, some have passed away, some I knew personally.’’

Police also wanted to catchup with George and urged him to return the coins to his nearest police station.

In a statement, police said George was last seen riding a mountain bike eastward on Church St in Mosgiel on August 22.

He was described as European, aged between 25 and 35, of slight build and between 167 centimetres and 170cm tall. He had short dark hair, was unshaven, and was wearing an orange, sleeveless hi-vis vest with a dark-coloured jersey, dark trousers, a black beanie and gloves.

Police believed the man lives locally in Dunedin or Mosgiel and was interested in coin collecting. He may have shown someone the collection now some time had passed since the theft, police said.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Dunedin police on 03 471 4800 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. An elderly collector has a simple message for a brazen conman who stole almost $40,000 of rare coins.

‘‘It is about time he changed his ways,’’ coin collector Johnny Lindsay said.

The conman, known as ‘George’, visited the Otago Coin International store in Mosgiel twice in August. ‘‘He planned the theft on his first visit, and he executed it on his second,’’ Lindsay said.

The man, described as a ‘‘short, softly spoken inoffensive fellow’’, took a box of gold coins when Lindsay’s back was turned.

Lindsay briefly gave chase as the man left the shop with nearly $40,000 worth of coins on August 22, but he jumped on a bike and fled.

‘‘It is an embarrassing situation for me to be in, it looks as if I was being careless but I wasn’t,’’ Lindsay said. An example of the coins stolen.

‘‘I was the victim of a conman who knew what he was doing.’’

Lindsay, who had been collecting coins since the 1950s, said 45 gold coins were taken, each held in a plastic sleeve with a description.

The coins, dated between 1700 and 1900, were in a rectangular blue case, and came from the United States, Austria, the Netherlands, France, England, India, Colombia, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden.

Lindsay said the man identified himself as George during his first visit to the store and asked how much some of his own coins were worth. ‘‘This made it worse, as it was personal,’’ Lindsay, who once had an entire coin collection taken from his former Dunedin store, said.

‘‘I didn’t know at the time he was deceiving me – it was his way to gain my