£50,000 reward offered in hunt for rare early Scottish coins stolen in 2007

A £50,000 reward is being offered over the unsolved theft of a batch of early Scottish coins that were stolen 17 years ago.

More than 1,000 coins from the 12th and 13th centuries were taken from the home of Lord and Lady Stewartby in Broughton, near Peebles in the Scottish Borders, in June 2007.

The stolen haul spans a period of almost 150 years, from around 1136 when the first Scottish coins were minted during the reign of David I up to around 1280 and the reign of Alexander III.

The late Lord Stewartby entrusted the remainder of his collection to The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in 2017, but the missing coins have never been found.

Crimestoppers announced its maximum reward of £20,000 - which is available for three months until 27 February - in a fresh appeal on Wednesday. An anonymous donor is helping to boost the total reward amount to £50,000.

It is hoped it will prompt people to come forward with information which could lead to the recovery of the missing treasures and the conviction of those responsible for the crime.

Angela Parker, national manager at Crimestoppers Scotland, said Lord Stewartby's haul was the "best collection of Scottish coins ever assembled by a private individual".

Jesper Ericsson, curator of numismatics at The Hunterian, described the medieval coins as smaller than a modern penny.

He added: "Portraits of kings and inscriptions may be worn down to almost nothing and the coins might be oddly shaped, perhaps even cut in half or quarters.

"You could fit 1,000 into a plastic takeaway container, so they don't take up a lot of space. They may look unremarkable, but these coins are the earliest symbols of Scotland's monetary independence.

"They are of truly significant national importance. Their safe return will not only benefit generations of scholars, researchers, students and visitors to come, but will also right a wrong that Lord Stewartby never got to see resolved before he died."

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Mr Ericsson pleaded with whoever has the coins to "return them to where they belong".

He added: "Give Scotland back its coins."

Lady Stewartby said her husband, who was a renowned numismatist, was just five-years-old when he was given his first Scottish coin.

She added: "Over the next 50 years, he put together a collection which included some of the earliest Scottish coins.

"Lord Stewartby told me and our children that they represented Scotland's history at a time when few people had access to books or pictures."

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