Template:Did you know nominations/Croydon Aerodrome robbery
- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 21:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
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Croydon Aerodrome robbery
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Unloading gold bullion at Croydon Aerodrome
... that the case of the Croydon Aerodrome robbery (aerodrome scene pictured) came before the House of Lords in 1939?- ALT1:... that only one of the gang that carried out the Croydon Aerodrome gold bullion robbery in 1935 (aerodrome scene pictured) was convicted, and the gold was never found?
- Reviewed: Ram Singh Malam
Created by Whispyhistory (talk), Philafrenzy (talk), and Redrose64 (talk). Nominated by Whispyhistory (talk) at 16:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC).
- Added pic, it's a year earlier but might work. Philafrenzy (talk) 17:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
- Comment, not a review. Good subject, but various sloppy language points - needs a read through. Especially around the 4 am bit. How much is £21K today? Not sure if "came before the House of Lords is hooky intriguing or just mystifying to even younger Brits, never mind others. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
- Will look, struck the first hook. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
- Will check over thx Whispyhistory (talk) 06:28, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for questions which have instilled much thought. With regards to price conversion. Please excuse lack of knowledge here. The matter is complex and is not a simple conversion of price then and price now. It depends how much of the original £21,000 was in gold bullion and how much in dollars (I’m not sure what eagles are?). And how the part that was in dollars was invested after 1935. If it was all invested in gold the numbers are: 1935: £21,000 worth of gold = $105,000 dollars worth = 3,000 ounces. Now: 3,000 ounces of gold = $3,000,000 dollars worth = £2,222,222. If it was all invested in dollars the answer will depend on what happened to the dollars in the time 1935 to now. The biggest part of the increase would come down to how it was invested in the meantime. If you pick the US stock market see this article [1] which implies $1m invested in 1935 would today be worth about $2.4 billion – a return in excess of 10% pac. So $105,000 dollars in 1935, if it had stayed invested throughout the period (including reinvesting any income) would get to about $250,000,000 today or about £185,000,000. The UK stock market will be different and I don’t have a figure to hand but would guess it would still be a very big number. The point is you would have been better off in the stock market than in gold. If the money were left on deposit I think the answer would be a lot lower. The papers (quoting 12 million) may have assumed something else. The point is it would be a lot more money than it was then however it was invested. I didn't include in the article because we don't know.
- With regards to 4am...different sources give varying times...therefore I did not say precisely. I could change it to "in the early hours of the morning".
- With regards to sloppy English...I re-read and don't understand what to change. Will leave to @Philafrenzy:.Whispyhistory (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, that sounds best. If you don't see any problems with, eg "The vault was at the time, locked.[1][4] [para] A few hours later, an unlocked strong room with £21,000 worth of gold bullion, gold sovereigns and gold US dollars, was discovered to be stolen...", I hope he will. Currency conversion is always rough and ready - if you think 1935 is difficult, try the 18th century. Nonetheless we have standard ways of handling it. Johnbod (talk) 20:52, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
- Will check over thx Whispyhistory (talk) 06:28, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
- Will look, struck the first hook. Philafrenzy (talk) 09:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
| General: Article is new enough and long enough |
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| Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
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| Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
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| Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px. |
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| QPQ: Done. |
Overall: 
You might want to link the gold coins involved - Gold sovereign & Eagle (United States coin) (& double eagle). There is something weird going on with the £ values quoted. As whispyhistory sets out £21,000 in 1935 = ~3,000 ozt. = ~US$ 3.8m in 2018, which is a long way shy of the £12m quoted for 2009 in ref#1. On inflation terms £21,000 in 1935 would be £1.58 million in 2016. Similarly the 5,000 gold sovereigns & 5,000 American Eagles quoted in the court case are at least 3,600 oxt. Trying to sort that out looks a lot like original research unless you can find a reliable source.
If Alt1 is as good as we can get, and it's looking like it is, then I am happy to sign off. Find bruce (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
- I think Alt1 is sound. Please tick if you are happy. I don't think we need to agonise about the current value of a load of gold bullion, it's self-evident that it had great value then and would do now. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:38, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm happy Find bruce (talk) 12:12, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
- I think Alt1 is sound. Please tick if you are happy. I don't think we need to agonise about the current value of a load of gold bullion, it's self-evident that it had great value then and would do now. Philafrenzy (talk) 10:38, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
