Curious case of the alleged conman Ric Blum and the missing coins

It’s the conman’s collection – a combination of unusual artefacts and rare coins traced back to alleged serial fraudster Ric Blum.

Ric Blum. Picture: Tessa Flemming

It’s the conman’s collection – a combination of unusual artefacts and rare coins traced back to alleged serial fraudster Ric Blum.

A Roman bronze-plated phallus and a bronze “fibula” or brooch, circa 75BC, along with ancient coins, are among numerous items Mr Blum has sold via a leading Australian auction house.

Some of the objects sold for less than $100, while other sales were worth thousands of dollars for the disability pensioner.

Mr Blum’s financial position and his dealing in rare coins and antiquities are under the microscope after he was linked first to a missing Queensland schoolteacher, Marion Barter, and then to a succession of alleged scams.

Barter mysteriously withdrew large sums of cash before she vanished in 1997, aged 51, following a relationship with Mr Blum that she kept secret from her two children, family members and even her closest friends.

He has always maintained he has no knowledge of what happened to Barter.

Since Mr Blum was first linked to Barter by amateur sleuths researching her disappearance on the back of a popular podcast, The Lady Vanishes, other women have come forward to say he robbed them of their money and in some cases their valuable coin collections.

One woman, Ginette Gaffney-Bowan, who met Mr Blum through a personal ad in a newspaper, has told police he stole from her two coins made from a gold nugget. The coins had sentimental value as the nugget had been purchased for her twins by their father.

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Mr Blum allegedly also stole from Ms Gaffney-Bowan some pure silver coins from Argentina that a friend had given her in the 1970s.

Marion Barter, missing since 1997.

He suggested they launch a coin-trading business together, but when she refused to sell her Sydney home to buy a Paris apartment he tried to blackmail her with naked photos taken without her consent.

An elderly woman from Belgium, Andree Flamme, has also alleged Mr Blum stole her coin collection.

Mr Blum, now 83, last year rejected the allegations from the women at a NSW inquest into Barter’s disappearance.

At the inquest, he also sought to downplay his coin trading, stating that in the 1990s he briefly set up a coin business at an office in Ballina, but that the only items he sold were worth in the hundreds of dollars at most and never at auction.

Some coins were from his grandfather, and others were mainly purchased through car boot sales, Mr Blum said.

“I never sold coins in the thousands of dollars, never,” he said.

However, Mr Blum was a regular client of online auction house Noble Numismatics, The Australian can reveal.

His coins and antiquities were sold under the name of his family, Coppenolle.

The Roman phallus Mr Blum sold at an auction house.

At one auction alone in 2010, he is believed to have put up for sale tens of thousands of dollars worth of coins, antiquities and “didactic” material.

The items were discovered by volunteer researcher Joni Condos, a key supporter of Barter’s daughter Sally Leydon in her search for answers.

Ms Condos said she set out to see whether coin trading was a hobby or profession for Mr Blum.

“I found he was dealing with some of the most recognised coin dealers in the world,” she said.

Travel records show Mr Blum frequently travelled overseas, including in the 1990s.

Rare and valuable coins would have been an easy way to move wealth across borders without raising red flags with authorities.

“An expensive coin is something that can be transported around the world with a high value but a very small size,” Ms Condos said.

The inquest is ongoing.