TREASURE HOARDED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21380, 24 June 1939, Page 2

TREASURE HOARDED

£400,000,000 UNDERGROUND Articles stored in London safe deposits are estimated to have increased by £160,000,000 in total value in the last few months. This is largely owing to a rush by foreigners to hoard gold, jewellery and art treasures. The custodian of one deposit told a Sunday Express representative that the total value of the treasures kept underground now was probably about £400,000,000. Many valuable paintings recently flown from the Continent are now packed behind grilles. Thousands of rich people have turned their currency into gold and brought it to London. Talked in Sleep Tlie London Safe Deposit in Regent Street West, where Queen Mary nas a safe, has recently fitted several safes with combination-number opening systems. so that foreigners need carry no written record of their deposits. Recently one foreigner asked for his combination numbers to be changed. He said his wife had told him he talked in his sleep. One big safe is crammed with treasures put there by a Spaniard nearly three years ago when he went to fight for Franco. He has never come back. “We shall wait another ten years for him." the custodian said. “Then we shall open the safe and try to trace his relatives." One man has paid for a wall to be buill, round his trunks so that others cannot watch when he is opening them.