A St. John's man has appeared in court in relation to the robbery of rare coins and currency stolen from a city business during the height of a January blizzard.

Kenneth Reese, 35, is charged with possession of stolen property. He was released from custody on court-imposed conditions, and is due to appear in court next month.

A 140-kilogram safe was stolen from East Coast Coins on Jan. 10 while the city was being hammered by a fierce storm. The safe contained a collection of historic coins and bank notes that are considered valuable to collectors, but which had little street value.

Store owner Rod O'Driscoll said he recognized some of the stolen merchandise when police showed him some of the evidence they had collected.

"There was a gym bag full of stuff," he told CBC News Tuesday.

"From what I understand, the collection was on its way to Nova Scotia."

O'Driscoll believes that the safe robbery was related to another break-in that occurred four days earlier. He had posted security video from the first robbery on YouTube, which he said drew a lot of attention from the public, but also caught the eye of the close-knit community of coin collectors across the continent.

"People were getting an unbelievable response," he said, adding that numerous reports of possibly suspicious online activity had been reported to the police, Crime Stoppers and himself over the last few weeks.

He said he was told that a public tip had led to this week's arrest.