Daily Casefile · Detective
The Cracked Mould
≈ 4 min
Copperfield Artisan Soap & Candle Works opens its workshop floor every Saturday for small guided tours, letting visitors watch the pour, wick, and cure process up close. This morning, tour guide Bess Tanaka discovered that the workshop's prized centrepiece — a hand-engraved copper mould commissioned in 1962 from retired craftsman Harold Vey and used to cast the signature Copperfield honeycomb soap bar — had been pried from its mounting bracket and was missing from the demonstration bench. The mould is irreplaceable; Harold Vey passed away last year and no second mould was ever made.
Subject
The 1962 Vey Copper Mould
A palm-sized, hand-engraved copper casting mould etched with a 64-cell honeycomb pattern. It sits in a custom iron bracket bolted to the main demonstration bench and has not left that bench in eleven years.
The suspects
- Bess Tanaka — Workshop Tour Guide
- Otto Drewe — Freelance Product Photographer
- Priya Noll — Craft-Market Vendor (Stall Three)
- Leon Marsh — Workshop Volunteer and Soap Demonstrator
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This case first aired on July 25, 2026. A fresh detective runs every morning — same rules, five minutes, one solution.