Thieves steal 100kg gold coin worth millions from Berlin museum

An oversized gold coin worth millions of pounds has been stolen from a museum in Germany.

The Big Maple Leaf weighs 100 kg (221lbs) and measures 53cm (21ins) across, and is thought to be the world's biggest coin.

Berlin police said it was taken by thieves who broke into the Bode museum in the city at around 3.30am on Monday.

Spokesman Stefen Petersen said they entered through a window and broke into a cabinet where the coin was kept.

A ladder found alongside nearby railway tracks is believed to have been used by the thieves and then dumped.

The coin has a face value of $1m (£790,000), but the gold in it makes it worth almost $4.5m (£3.9m) at today's market prices.

The museum says the Big Maple Leaf is in the Guinness Book of Records for its purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

It has a portrait of the Queen on one side and maple leaves on the other.

The three centimetre thick coin is a commemorative piece issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007.

The Bode Museum houses one of the world's biggest collections of coins.

Exhibits include 102,000 coins from ancient Greece and about 50,000 Roman coins.