Stolen Historical Treasures

[cookie]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57541136/historical-treasures-missing-from-national-archives/

 

[LizzieMaine]

And don't think it's just hustlers and conmen and common thieves stealing this stuff. There is a lot of inside thievery going on -- the former head of the Recorded Sound division of the National Archives was arrested last year and charged with stealing hundreds of historical radio transcriptions from the vaults and reselling them on eBay.

 

[Shangas]

Not quite the same thing, but there are also people who like to forge things to make them appear more valuable.

There was a case a year or two ago about a man who claimed to have a letter or telegram sent by Abe Lincoln ON the day of his assassination, and went around touting about how it was the last thing the guy wrote before he was shot.

Careful analysis revealed that the letter WAS written by Lincoln, but the guy had deliberately changed the date (1865, instead of the real date, 1864). Not only had he fooled the entire historical community, he defaced a historic document. Needless to say, his research credibility was smashed completely.

 

[davidraphael]

I'm not naming names...but....academics, academics, academics in the humanities.

They are always 'borrowing' from archives with the express intention of making the loan permanent. They get it into their heads that they are world renowned experts on certain subjects and convince themselves that rare and unique artifacts somehow belong to them by right.
But of course they don't protect said artifacts in the right environmental conditions and, academics being academics, they forget where they put them in their personal collections of often thousands of items...

In terms of outright thievery, I can highly recommend the BBC documentary about the stolen and subsequently defaced (a perhaps too mild an adjective) Shakespeare 1st folio. "Stealing Shakespeare"

 

[lolly_loisides]

^^^^^^^
Something similar happened here a few years ago. An employee of the Australian Museum stole over 2000 skulls, skins and skeletons, including a Tasmanian Tiger skull from the museum, apparently just for the sake of having them.

More info here http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/museum-thief-jailed/2007/04/20/1176697056398.html

 

[Shangas]

It does make one wonder. Once you have it...what do you do with it? It's not like you can show it off to people...

 

[Dan Allen]

Stealing a famous work of art is sort of like traveling around the world entirely by yourself. It's not worth much unless you can share it with someone.

 

[Shangas]

Well that's just my point. Why do it if you can't tell someone that you did? Or can't share it? It seems rather pointless to me.

 

[cookie]

It does make one wonder. Once you have it...what do you do with it? It's not like you can show it off to people...

Many have secret galleries installed in their homes where they can display and ogle their ill gotten gains and think "what a jolly lucky fellow am I!".

 

[Chowderhouse]

Several decades ago, a Japanese millionaire won at auction a very important Van Gogh painting at a record-setting price: 82.5 million dollars. A few years later, the Japanese millionaire died ... and he may have secretly had the painting burned (cremated) along with his corpse.

"Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito, spent a few hours with his purchase, then locked it in a climate-controlled vault. And there it stayed, untouched and unseen, for seven years."


http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/portrait.htm

 

[Mojito]

Archive theft is absolutely a problem - I know of reported instances in my field where someone has taken certain items "for safekeeping" as he doesn't believe the institution that holds them values them enough, and another where important fashion designs were taken from a major museum's collection. And those are just the stories I know are true - there are plenty of other incidents gossiped about about in research circles that I believe probably have some basis, but given the malicious nature of the some the stories research rivals circulate about each other, I'm less certain.

 

[Flicka]

We had a scandal a few years ago when it turned out that the head of the manuscript department at the National Library was selling off treasures in secret. He actually committed suicide by blowing up his flat with his gas stove in 2004 and recently one very valuable atlas was recovered:

http://www.thelocal.se/41692/20120628/

 

[JonnyO]

I'm pretty sure I would love to be part of the National Archives Archival Recovery Team.

 

[Flicka]

I'm pretty sure I would love to be part of the National Archives Archival Recovery Team.

Could be the topic for very nice books or films, such a team. And yes, I'm serious.

 

[JonnyO]

Could be the topic for very nice books or films, such a team. And yes, I'm serious.

No doubt about that, I was thinking the exact thing while reading the article.

 

[LocktownDog]

No doubt about that, I was thinking the exact thing while reading the article.

Can we agree to keep Nicholas Cage out of it?

 

[JonnyO]

Can we agree to keep Nicholas Cage out of it?

I would pay him to make sure he stays out of it

 

[Flicka]

I would pay him to make sure he stays out of it

I'm willing to chip in!

 

[JonnyO]

Anyone else in on the "Keep Nicholas Cage out of Historical Movies" fund?

 

[Dawna]

Many have secret galleries installed in their homes where they can display and ogle their ill gotten gains and think "what a jolly lucky fellow am I!".

It's not just individuals, either. The Hermitage in St Petersburg has a room that does not appear on the gallery map, and which is full of paintings that are labelled as having "arrived" from Germany in around 1946. "Arrived" indeed (as opposed to all the other paintings whose method of acquisition is meticulously noted).