Yamamoto's tooth

[Tiki Tom]

I'm thinking that those are some pretty long odds that he is playing. Not sure I'd pay $14,000 for a random tooth that I happened to find in the mud. Then again, Portillo is a billionaire and has deeper pockets than me. The FOX News article left me with so many questions that I looked for another link. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune (couldn't get it to link properly), Portillo is a WWII buff and went out of his way to visit the site of Yamamoto's crash. However, it was not an archaeological dig. He was just kicking around the site in the jungle when he noticed a tooth in the mud. Simple as that. Strikes me as a bit macabre to be talking about it in terms of an investment, but that's just me. More likely, I think (hope) he's viewing it as a bit of a historical mystery/adventure.

"Dick Portillo, founder of the Portillo's fast food chain, was on 2015 trip to Papua New Guinea where U.S. pilots shot down Japanese naval commander Isoroku Yamamoto's plane when the tooth surfaced in the mud. A clan that owns the site confiscated the tooth, but later turned it over for $14,000.

"If it comes to be true, it's peanuts compared to the value that I would look at," Portillo told the Chicago Tribune. "If it doesn't, you win some and you lose some."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/2...g-may-own-wwii-japanese-commanders-tooth.html
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[MisterCairo]

Sounds like utter nonsense to me. The things people will do for money...

 

[Harp]

Circumstantial evidence which may prove true. I believe Adm. Yamamoto lost a finger in the Russo-Japanese War while still a midshipman.
A poker player who lost the hand dealt by fate, shot down in New Guinea, and loses a gold tooth later found. There is a samurai's karma in this-and-that.

 

[MisterCairo]

Mmm hmm. Plane crashes in the jungle, tooth knocked out, found seventy years later.

Yup.

 

[Harp]

Mmm hmm. Plane crashes in the jungle, tooth knocked out, found seventy years later.

Yup.

Yep. A gold tooth found in New Guinea. A rarity-possibly Yamamoto's.

 

[Stearmen]

If the tooth does prove to be his, then this is the only proper place for it!

 

[Tiki Tom]

...Or perhaps at the Yasukuni Shrine!

 

[Harp]

I recall a US Army Air Corps squadron did the hit. The tooth should be placed on display in the US Air Force Academy library.
Admittedly a bit ghoulish, but with Yamamoto's death US Air Corps history was writ most emphatically.