9. 3. 1968 Polička Coin Treasure

Workers found a treasure in the shaft of one of the townhouses in Polička in 1968. It contains a total of twelve thousand Silesian coins. The town of Polička tried for years to get it from the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice. Finally, it succeeded.

The coins date back to the seventeenth century. Krejcars from the beginning of the Thirty Years' War were deposited in the East Bohemian Museum Pardubice. In 2012, the town of Polička tried to get the rare depot back, but it only received copies. The museum guarded the coins. The reason for this was that not many coins from the Thirty Years' War were preserved.

According to numismatists, the coin probably came from the sale of several cattle. The treasure was discovered by workers in the ventilation shaft of one of the townhouses in Polička. "According to the current law, it seems that the property is now owned by the East Bohemian Museum and the town of Polička has no chance to reclaim this find," said Polička mayor Jaroslav Martinů in 2013.

The museum argued that it had adequate conditions for storing such a treasure. In terms of scale, it is unique in Europe. "It is also quite extraordinary in that it contains coins that have not even been published before," said numismatist Ladislav Nekvapil from the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice.

The depot contained exactly 12,280 coins. They were bricked up in the ventilation shaft of the corner house on Palacký náměstí, where today a delicatessen and a restaurant are located. It is the largest find of its kind in the country. The town's efforts paid off, Polička acquired the treasure in 2015.

Today, the treasure consists of ten thousand original coins. Two thousand four hundred and seventy of them disappeared during a theft in the East Bohemian Museum in 1970. Polička searched for the witnesses of the discovery of the original treasure.

"This is an important piece of evidence documenting the Thirty Years' War period; no similar coins have been preserved anywhere. What could one buy for the value of the treasure at the time? The answer is 8 cows. This is connected with the assumption that the contents were money obtained from the cattle trade," said Naděžda Šauerová, the town's spokeswoman.

Sources: www.denik.cz, www.ceskatelevize.cz