Avon and Somerset Police have launched an appeal for information about four men captured on security cameras on September 25 outside a building in the southwestern city of Bristol, which housed items from the collection.
“More than 600 artefacts of various descriptions were taken by the offenders,” police said in a statement about the theft from the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection.
“The theft of many items which carry a significant cultural value is a significant loss for the city,” said the officer in the case, Dan Burgan.
“These items, many of which were donations, form part of a collection that provides insight into a multi-layered part of British history,” he added.
As well as jewellery and military medals, badges and pins, other stolen items included decorative artefacts such as carved ivory, silver pieces, and bronze figurines.
Several natural history pieces, including geological specimens, were also taken.
Police said they wanted to talk to the four unidentified men, all wearing caps or hoodies, seen in the CCTV images carrying bags in the early hours.
The burglary happened between 1:00 am and 2:00 am on September 25 in the city’s Cumberland Road area, officers said.
The revelation comes after thieves stole crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris in October.
In August 2023, the British Museum in London revealed that some 1,800 items had been taken from its world-renowned collections by a former employee. A few hundred were later recovered.
The museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, resigned in August 2023 after admitting the institution did not act “as it should have” on warnings that items had gone missing.