“Wooden” You Know It?
Orville wasn’t exactly the spitting image of a 1920’s gangster. He didn’t own a gun, he didn’t tote around a violin case, and he didn’t wear a pinstriped double-breasted suit. He rarely left his house except to put in his eight hours at work, five days a week. He was happily married and had two children.
What he did have was a limp. A hunting accident when he was young cost him his leg. Ever since he was thirteen he had worn a wooden leg.
He made $4.00 a day along with a $20.00 monthly bonus. Although he had an engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines, he was a longtime valued and trusted employee at the Denver Mint.
Over a five-month period he managed to steal fifty-three gold bars. He carried them out of the Mint in his hollowed out wooden leg. Adjusted for inflation that would be equivalent to more than $828 million.
He was stopped at the end of his shift one night and confronted about the missing gold. Orville admitted his guilt, saying that he buried the bars in his backyard garden. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. And so the first great Denver Mint robbery was solved.
When Orville’s house was torn down thirty years later so a new highway could be built, many people did a whole lot of metal detecting in his backyard, hoping to find a missed golden bar. None were found!
Clubs and Associations
- American Numismatic Association
- American Numismatic Society
- British Numismatic Society
- Central Ohio Numismatic Association
- Central States Numismatic Society
- Florida United Numismatists
- Numismatic Society of India
- the Cincinnati Numismatic Association
- The Royal Canadian Numismatic Association
- The Royal Numismatic Society
Coin Links
- Boy Scouts Merit Badge
- Buffalo Nickels
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- Calculate your coin's gold, silver, or metallic worth
- Coins & Currency in Colonial America
- David Lawrence Rare Coins Reference Library
- Dayton Metro Library – Coin Books
- Fixing PVC damage
- Indian Head Cents
- Legandary Coins and Currency from the Smithsonian
- Medalblog
- Mints of the World
- Monnaie de Paris
- NapoleonicMedals.org
- raregoldcoins.com
- Royal Canadian Mint
- Smithsonian Institution Collection
- Starting a coin collection
- The Kittredge Collection
- The Perth Mint
- The Pobjoy Mint
- The Princeton University Numismatic Collection
- The Royal Mint
- United States Mint
- University of Virginia Coin Collection
- Where is my coin from?
Coin News
Miami Valley Coin Dealers
Speciality Clubs
- American Tax Token Society
- Barber Coin Collectors' Society
- Dayton Diggers Metal Detecting Club
- Early American Coppers
- Encased Collectors International
- Fly-In Club
- Liberty Seated Collector's Club
- Medal Collectors of America
- National Token Collectors Association
- Numismatic Bibliomania Society
- The Bust Half Nut Club
- The Civil War Token Society
- The Colonial Coin Collectors Club
- The Elongated Collectors
- The John Reich Collectors Society
- The Society of Paper Money Collectors
- The Token and Medals Society
- Unrecognised States Numismatic Society
- Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collectors Club