AN auctioneer who sold a lead ingot, believed to be from the historic Loch Ard wreck, is confident it was not pilfered from the collection at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village.
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Bruce Lowenthal, of Port Fairy, said the item was submitted by a private Warrnambool collector who wanted to downsize and was bought by another local collector for $99.
“There’s no way it would have been stolen from Flagstaff Hill,” Mr Lowenthal said.
“Lots of stuff was taken from wrecks by divers in the 1960s and ’70s. This may well have come from the Loch Ard, but there was no paperwork to say where it came from.
“The vendor didn’t say and I couldn’t confirm — someone mentioned that it may have been from the Loch Ard wrecked near Port Campbell in 1878.
“I was given a truckload of stuff by the vendor to sell at the auction at Illowa in November.”
The Standard was alerted to the sale yesterday by an anonymous tip-off, claiming it was a genuine relic and had been sold for a “bargain” price.
It follows recent conjecture on the whereabouts of at least 66 ingots unaccounted for from the village collection.
It is common knowledge that items were looted from the Loch Ard by divers after it was rediscovered in 1967.
The Commonwealth government retrieved a substantial amount in the late 1960s when it hunted down offenders and prosecuted them for raiding a national treasure.
A written record shows in 1984 the Commonwealth loaned 872 ingots and 10 sheets of copper to Flagstaff Hill for safekeeping. However, a recent audit revealed a shortfall.
According to minutes of a recent Flagstaff Hill advisory committee meeting there is no record of any count between 1984 and 2012, when a collection team noted 728 ingots.
However, a recount last year found only 652. Flagstaff Hill manager Peter Abbott is confident most of the discrepancy will be solved when the rotted Rowita display vessel is dismantled to reveal a number of ingots in her hull.
