2017-05-26 Fri

Salzburg Museum is going to get back 94 precious coins that were stolen in 1945. For more than 70 years, they were safely hidden in an Austrian salt mine by Chester L. Krause who thought that they were looted from Austria after the Second World War. He donated the coins to the American Numismatic Society in 1995 finally as he did not what them to be lost in the market.

Inventory numbers written in ink on the surface of the coins suggested that the coins belonged to the Salzburg Museum. The coins were easily identified by the museum as they were very rare.

4,000 historic coins were removed from the Salzburger Museum Carolino-Augusteum, in a chest and hidden in a salt mine in nearby Hallein. In June 1945, US military authorities took the responsibility of the coins. When the coins were returned to the museum in 1946, almost 2,600 pieces were missing. Some of them were recovered, but in 1955 almost 2,500 were still missing.