At 1:20 A.M., yesterday the box was again opened, this time for the Led Zeppelin's manager to take out $1,200 in cash for expenses. At that time, the police say they were told by Mr. Cole, the envelopes containing the other cash were still in the box.

After the discovery of the theft, experts from the city's police crime laboratory went over the area in the hotel lobby where the safety‐deposit boxes are situated, looking for finger prints or other clues.

A spokesman for the hotel told the police that the Drake did not keep a record of the contents of the safety‐deposit boxes. The police said no evi dence of a forced entry had been found by detectives of the Third District Burglary and Larceny Squad, who are inves tigating the case.

The Drake Hotel has been the scene of two other thefts within the last three years. On March 22, 1971, the wife of for mer Governor Walter J. Kohler of Wisconsin, here with her husband to attend the funeral of Thomas E. Dewey, was robbed of $30,000 in jewelry, taken from her suite in the hotel. On Christmas morning that same year a gang of hold up men robbed the hotel of $15,000 in cash and jewelry.

Led Zeppelin is one of the more popular British groups, said by some aficionados to rank second only to the now disbanded Beatles.