Gold bathtub stolen from Japan hotel

[allesennogwat]

Golden bathtub stolen from Japanese hotel


Fancy tub weighs 176 pounds and is worth nearly $1 million



TOKYO - A glittering bathtub made of gold worth nearly $1 million has been stolen from a resort hotel, an official said Wednesday.

A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police that the fancy tub was missing from the hotel’s guest bathroom on the 10th floor, according to a local police official who only gave his surname, Ogawa.

The round tub, worth $987,000, is made of 18-karat gold and weighs 176 pounds.


The tub, flanked by two crane statues, has been a main feature of the hotel’s shared bathroom. Visitors can take a dip in the tub, but it is only available a few hours a day “for security reasons,” the hotel’s Web site said.

Someone apparently cut the chain attached to the door of a small section of the bathroom where the bathtub was placed, but not riveted, and made off with the tub, Ogawa said.


“We have no witness information and there are no video cameras,” he said. “We have no idea who took it,” the official said.

[16r40]

I can see the thieves cuttin this bad boy up to more easily and managable pieces. 176 pounds is really not that much.

on a side not, I saw a movie where some guys robbed a bunch of gold from a swiss airliner and metled the gold bars into a boat rails and attached them to a boat and sailed away to the bahamas......can't remember what the name of the movie was, but it had gene hackman and devito in it, actually it was a pretty good movie......but then anything with hackman in it is pretty good.

[allesennogwat]

Even melted down where are they going to sell 176 pounds of stolen gold?

[KernelKrink]

Someone will buy it, you can't positively ID a lump of gold as stolen. I would assume they are going to do it a few ounces at a time instead of casting one huge ingot and taking it to a pawn shop.....

[Oswald2001]

You can sell gold pretty easily.

Just melt it down so that it is untraceable.

They would have to assay it, but, that's really no big deal.

You could wait 6 months or a year and then start selling it in small lots to several 'cooperative' dealers.

Or just use a 'fence'.

[16r40]

there are criminal organization in japan if you want to unload that much gold at one time,........granted you won't get market quote, but it's all 100 percent profit

[Geist762]

Prolly brought a mini blow torch in their luggage.

[JohnFreeman]

Even melted down where are they going to sell 176 pounds of stolen gold?

Ebay, like anything else! :-)

[Geist762]

Maybe they made some grilles!

http://www.seemygrill.com/f/pics/114791132290795-phpDotiNT.JPG

[knall]

agreed, I can't see how the fuck it is worth a million. Its under 200 lb of gold.

just because the hotel PAID a milion dont make it worth a million

[KernelKrink]

176lbs = 2566.6 Troy ounces

Tokyo gold prices closed around $662 per ounce last Friday

2566.6 X $662 = $1,699,089

18 carat gold is only 75% gold, so:

$1,699,089 X .75 = $,1274,316 in gold value alone.

One assumes the 176 lb weight is rounded off, so the ounces could be a few more or less. Also, the brokers want to make a profit so the street value would be a little less.

I think my math is close enough, but please double check it for accuracy. Troy ounces always confuses me.

[allesennogwat]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952632,00.html


Monday, Feb. 25, 1980



Once upon a time, a savvy Japanese hotelman named Hideki Yokoi came up with the ultimate gimmick. He spent $300,000 for a phoenix-shaped, 22-karat, solid gold bathtub, and installed it 14 years ago in the basement of his Funabara resort hotel about 100 miles south of Tokyo. A bit larger than normal, the tub holds a cramped two, and Yokoi was able to charge honeymooners and Very Good Friends $2.80 apiece for a five-minute soak that he claimed would prolong their lives for at least one year. For $4, a photographer burnished the moments for posterity.

With gold selling these days at roughly $667 per oz., the tub has become a bonanza. It is now worth $2.5 million, and the number of customers has jumped 50% since gold prices surged in mid-1979. About half the 100,000 guests who go to the hotel every year take the plunge. Today they are each soaked for $20, and the photographs—in color—are $8 a shot.

Hideki Yokoi's good fortune is not unalloyed: he worries about protecting his treasure. Now he requires that his male receptionist inspect the bathers before they undress to see if they are carrying hammers, gimlets or any other sharp instruments. Scrapes and scratches have appeared mysteriously on the tub, and Yokoi fears that his guests might be trying to recoup their costs under their fingernails.

[allesennogwat]

$1M Gold Bathtub Stolen From Hotel

A glittering bathtub made of gold worth nearly $1 million has been stolen from a resort hotel, an official said Wednesday. A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police that the fancy tub was missing from the hotel's guest bathroom on the 10th floor, according to a local police official who only gave his surnam

[allesennogwat]

Canada Mints 200-Pound, Solid-Gold Coin

May 5, 2007


OTTAWA (Map, News) - Got change for a million? Canada does: the world's biggest pure gold coin at 200 pounds. Already, three buyers have shelled out for one of the 1 million Canadian dollar coins introduced last week.

The Royal Canadian mint made the coins - 20 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick - mostly to seize the bragging rights from Austria, which had the record with a 70-pound, 15-inch wide coin.

"They're not doing this because there is huge demand for 100-kilo gold coins," Bret Evans, editor of Canadian Coin News said Saturday. "They're doing it because it gives them some bragging rights in having the largest purest gold coin in the world."

"They'll kick the Austrians out of the Guinness World Book of Records," he said.

Listed as 99.999 percent pure gold bullion, the coin features Queen Elizabeth II on one side and Canada's national symbol - the maple leaf - on the other.

It takes about six weeks to make and has a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars ($903,628), though it sells for approximately $2.7 million depending on the market value of gold.

The coins will give the mint a higher international profile.

"We wanted to raise the bar so that we could say the government of Canada, or the Royal Canadian Mint, produced the purest gold coins in the world," said David Madge, the mint's director of bullion and refinery services.

Austria's coin 100,000 euro coin ($138,155) was 70 pounds and 15 inches in diameters.

Evans said the Canadian mint recently lost some market share as mints in Australia, Austria, China and the United States pushed their own high-quality gold coins.

What does one do with a 220-pound gold coin?

Evans said bullion dealers use it as a promotional tool. A Japanese dealer, he said, puts one of the Austrian coins in public venues to draw people's attention.

"And while they're looking at that, they are being exposed to the idea of buying one ounce or half-ounce gold coins," he said.

[allesennogwat]

Cops probe theft of solid gold bathtub

May 30, 2007


Japanese police are scratching their heads over how a gold bathtub worth $988 100 and weighing some 80kg was stolen from a hotel near Tokyo.


Staff discovered early today that someone had stolen the bath from a shared bathroom for men on the 10th floor of the hotel in Kamogawa. But police said they had found no signs that the heavy bathtub had been dragged out of the hotel.

[allesennogwat]

Japanese Hotel Loses $1.2 Million Gold Bathtub

A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police the fancy tub was missing from the hotel's guest bathroom on the 10th floor of its building, according to a local police official.

The round tub, 1.21 metres in diameter and 71 centimetres tall, was made of 18-karat gold weighing 80 kilograms, the official said.


The tub, flanked by two crane statues, has been a main feature of the hotel's shared bathroom.


Visitors can take a dip in the tub, but it is only available a few hours a day "for security reasons," the hotel's website said.

Someone apparently cut the chain attached to the door of a small section of the bathroom where the bathtub was placed, but not riveted, and made off with the tub, the police official said.

The cranes were left untouched.

"We have no witness information and there are no video cameras," the official said.


Anyone seeing a gold bathtub being lugged around the streets of Tokyo, is urged to contact local authorities immediately..

[allesennogwat]

http://www.diamondvues.com/Bathtub_wideweb__430x365%2C0.jpg

[synisterrabbit]

its now at P. diddy's house.