VALUABLE FREIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 223, 20 September 1929, Page 8

VALUABLE FREIGHT.

GOLD COIN FOR LONDON.

VALUE OF £375,000.

SOME RETURNED TO BANK.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

Although in actual bulk it was probably the smallest individual consignment on board, an interesting item in the freight carried by the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamer Rimutaka, which sailed yesterday morning for England, was a shipment of gold coin for London worth possibly more than all the rest of the cargo put together. The shipment comprised 75 boxes of sovereigns and half-sovereigns, amounting to £375,000. Actually the original of the consignment was 100 boxes of gold coin, of the total value of £500,000, but when the boxes came to be stowed on board the Rimutaka it was found that the capacity of the strong-room was only 75 boxes. There were obvious objections to the other 25 boxes being stowed anywhere but in the strong-room of the ship, so at the last minute they were put ashore and returned to the bank vaults.

This important shipment of gold coin carried by the Rimutaka was made by the Bank of New Zealand, which will doubtless dispatch the remaining 25 boxes, valued at £125,000, by the next ship.

Last month a shipment of £100,000 in sovereigns went to the United States.

Inquiries were made yesterday regarding the significance of the export of such large quantities of gold coin, but Sir Henry Buckleton, general manager of the bank, said he had no statement to make at present.

Yesterday's shipment was taken to the Rimutaka by an escort of the bank's officers and several detectives. The gold was packed in small, stout wooden boxes, each containing £5000 worth of coin, and, for their size, the boxes were remarkably heavy. Across every seam of the boxes were stamped seals.