Suit of armour, Gen. Wolfe letter among stolen items found in home
HALIFAX — An evidence tag hangs from the clunky top half of a suit of armour. Next to it is a letter handwritten two centuries ago by British Gen. James Wolfe that sits in protective plastic.
They are part of an illicit and eclectic collection of antiques, rare books, historical documents and paintings that the RCMP allege were brazenly stolen from across Atlantic Canada over 20 years and stashed in a suburban Halifax home until last week.
On Friday, the Mounties held a show-and-tell featuring some of the 1,300 items seized from the two-storey home in Fall River, believed to be from universities, libraries, museums, antique dealers and private collections and worth more than $500,000.
There’s a spear. A gas mask. A glass lantern. Early editions of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 classic Robinson Crusoe. A fishing net. A model canoe. Paintings depicting centuries-old scenes. A brass telescope.
“There are some items that I would say aren’t historically significant, but are of value to the people who owned them,” Sgt. Colin MacLean said.
“But the vast majority are antiques, historical items that form parts of collections that just can’t be replaced.”
The small sampling put on display for reporters ranged from the outlandish to the sentimental.
The suit of armour, which was a prop from a movie, was pinched f rom an antique dealer in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.
A red wooden chair was snatched from a local senior citizen within the past year. “It may not be one of the most valuable items here, but as a family heirloom, to be able to return that to this gentleman is very significant to him,” MacLean said.
John Mark Tillmann, 51, faces several counts of possession of stolen property and is due in court Feb. 27 for a bail hearing. Police said more charges are pending.
RCMP said the investigation began when officers pulled over a car in July and said they found the Wolfe letter. The one-of-a-kind note, dated 1758, had disappeared from Dalhousie University’s archives years ago.
Dalhousie archivist Mike Moosberger said staff realized the letter was missing after completing an inventory in 2009, but no one knew for sure whether it had been stolen or merely misplaced.
Moosberger was reunited with the letter Friday at the RCMP detachment, but said he was upset to see that it had been torn and is missing some writing. When the note is returned to Dalhousie, there are no plans to keep it under lock and key, he said.
“You have to see people using it. You have to see the reaction that you get from researchers when they see the original materials. It’s really exciting.”