6 ms·

What's the point of stealing these? Vanity? You can't exactly melt them down and sell them for scrap - their resale value is basically zero - when the value com

What's the point of stealing these? Vanity? You can't exactly melt them down and sell them for scrap - their resale value is basically zero - when the value comes from being unique, doesn't that make it hard to make money off of the item?

iJohnDoe 6y ago
Seems kind of contradictory. FTA — "These books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural heritage," said Det Insp Andy Durham, from the Metropolitan police's Specialist Crime South command. The works were being stored in a warehouse ahead of being transported to a specialist book auction in Las Vegas, in the US, when they were stolen
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  ya, but it's not like the thieves are able to do an auction of their own.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Why not?
    - tartoran 6y ago
      Books are recorded as stolen, anyone who’d buy them would be liable to have them seized by authorities at some point when they try to resel them. As someone mentions above, if they were gold the value would still be there by melting them
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        > As someone mentions above, if they were gold the value would still be there by melting them Only if they were just a bunch of gold bars when you stole them. If you stole, say, the Swedish crown jewels ( https://www.thelocal.se/20190211/police-confirm-swedens-stolen-crown-jewels-found-strangnas-royal https://www.thelocal.se/20190211/police-confirm-swedens-stol... ), you could pop off all the jewels and melt down the gold for its weight value, but that would be losing almost 100% of the value. The thieves can't auction off their books by listing them at Christie's. But that's not the same claim as "the thieves can't auction off their books".
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Because a large part of the value is to show it off to your friends. "Look I have rare X and you don't". If it is stole though the people are are most likely to be impressed are also the most likely to know it is stolen (they might even check). Many will turn you in because they hope that it ends up in auction in a few years and then they can buy it for their own collection to show off. It might even be more valuable to then because they can say they found it stolen, and then bought it from the rightful owner which adds to the story.
- crusty 6y ago
  I also came to note the ridiculousness as well, castigating thieves for stealing and literally burying something of great value to the world and then, in the very next breath, casually allude to their accepted fate, being sold off to the mega-rich and hidden away for maybe one person to infrequently gaze at through glass or, more likely, to sit in a dark climate controlled vault waiting to be sold on to the next collector for the same fate.
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago
    I think this deserves a more nuanced take. Collectors don't wholly stow their collections away for nobody to see. Many of them actively cooperate with heritage institutions and loaning out for temporary or even permanent exhibitions. Why? First, because doing so is an expression of power and status. Second, because heritage institutions are scientific authorities. Having your works on displays asserts their authenticity, and thereby their value. Barring a handful of well known names, heritage institutions, publicly funded smaller organizations in particular, have always struggled to acquire enough resources to stay operational. Sponsoring, private donations and fundraising events are indispensable. There's a good reason why the Met Gala is a thing. And even the Met struggles financially. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art#Finances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art#Fin... Your comment reflects on the fact that heritage objects are hidden from the public's view when they end up in a private collection. Now, what's on public display in a museum doesn't constitute the entire collection either. It's a selection made by curators and scientists based on historical and cultural significance. The Met collection counts 2 million objects, for instance. Some objects are only put on display once every few decades in a temporary exhibition because their fragility and their intrinsic value require expensive logistics, insurances,... Finally, consider how galleries and museums acquire objects and ammend their collections. It doesn't happen by accident. Either it happens because a private collector bequeaths their own collection to a public institution; or it's because public institutions also participate in auctions. I understand the point you're trying to make. There are, indeed, private collectors who simply acquire objects at auctions which then disappear from the public's view for many decades. That's absolutely not a new thing
    - 6y ago
masklinn 6y ago
The resale value of rare books is nowhere near 0. There are cases in the millions every few years, see Priore/Schulman conviction earlier this year. The difficulty is fencing them for something approaching their value if you’re not part of “that world”, I’d expect that’s what the thief did not consider.
- anovikov 6y ago
  Trick is, there were definitely lists of them kept somewhere and with books being unique, anyone trying to sell one would get arrested.
  - ThePreacherMan 6y ago
    Well, you wont list them for sale on catawiki...but rather trough a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy with refined taste.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    > anyone trying to sell one would get arrested. Absolutely not. Again, every few years there are cases of millions worth of books having been stolen (and sold). Priore operated for 20 years. Discretion is highly valued in the art world, and collectors are generally careless at best, they will balk at obviously stolen items but a thin layer of legitimacy will suffice. But that is why fencing rate art is not trivial unless un steal to order.
cycomanic 6y ago
I'm sure the thief stole them out of greed, but didn't know who to sell to. Now the people buying and owning those books keeping them in their private collections, they typically do this out of vanity I would argue similar to people owning expensive art (although some do this also purely for investment). A great book talking about the secret work of rare books is "the club dumas", which I highly recommend. The movie was quite bad on the other hand.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > they typically do this out of vanity I would argue similar to people owning expensive art Seeing how many science libraries are simply throwing away so many historically significant math books, I'd say that quite a few of these "vanitous" people may be simply concerned about their conservation. A similar thing, in a much larger scale, may happen for art. As they say, today's thief is tomorrows conservator.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Haha, not that band of romanian thieves. They are quite dumb at times, I remember another case few years ago where they stole some paintings from a poorly secured museum, brought them home and one of them got scared of getting caught and burned them.
- jaifraic 6y ago
  It sounds like a quite complicated, risky and expensive job to do just out of greed without any idea what to do with the stolen goods.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  Many of these items have a fence value of near 0. The second they pop up in a real auction the police are involved and the whole chain goes down. Their real value usually comes in as a bargaining chip if caught for some other crime. The second way is if someone specific wants to have an item. There is no real 'market' for these type of stolen items. The third way is to 'ransom' them. A stolen TV has value as it is semi common and usually you can offload it. A stolen one of a kind piece of artwork/book/etc basically has a 'investigate me' sign on it.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
It didn't say if the thieves stole other things, I suppose they probably did steal other stuff as well as this, then figure out when they were going to sell things - huh we can't sell this stuff right now, let's keep it for later.
ThePreacherMan 6y ago
I'll be honest. I'd love to have some of these books in my personal collection...if I had found a way to buy them - I would've done so. I guess I have to do some networking with art thieves...

iJohnDoe 6y ago

Seems kind of contradictory. FTA — "These books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural heritage," said Det Insp Andy Durham, from the Metropolitan police's Specialist Crime South command. The works were being stored in a warehouse ahead of being transported to a specialist book auction in Las Vegas, in the US, when they were stolen

jonny_eh 6y ago
ya, but it's not like the thieves are able to do an auction of their own.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Why not?
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Books are recorded as stolen, anyone who’d buy them would be liable to have them seized by authorities at some point when they try to resel them. As someone mentions above, if they were gold the value would still be there by melting them
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > As someone mentions above, if they were gold the value would still be there by melting them Only if they were just a bunch of gold bars when you stole them. If you stole, say, the Swedish crown jewels ( https://www.thelocal.se/20190211/police-confirm-swedens-stolen-crown-jewels-found-strangnas-royal https://www.thelocal.se/20190211/police-confirm-swedens-stol... ), you could pop off all the jewels and melt down the gold for its weight value, but that would be losing almost 100% of the value. The thieves can't auction off their books by listing them at Christie's. But that's not the same claim as "the thieves can't auction off their books".
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Because a large part of the value is to show it off to your friends. "Look I have rare X and you don't". If it is stole though the people are are most likely to be impressed are also the most likely to know it is stolen (they might even check). Many will turn you in because they hope that it ends up in auction in a few years and then they can buy it for their own collection to show off. It might even be more valuable to then because they can say they found it stolen, and then bought it from the rightful owner which adds to the story.
crusty 6y ago
I also came to note the ridiculousness as well, castigating thieves for stealing and literally burying something of great value to the world and then, in the very next breath, casually allude to their accepted fate, being sold off to the mega-rich and hidden away for maybe one person to infrequently gaze at through glass or, more likely, to sit in a dark climate controlled vault waiting to be sold on to the next collector for the same fate.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  I think this deserves a more nuanced take. Collectors don't wholly stow their collections away for nobody to see. Many of them actively cooperate with heritage institutions and loaning out for temporary or even permanent exhibitions. Why? First, because doing so is an expression of power and status. Second, because heritage institutions are scientific authorities. Having your works on displays asserts their authenticity, and thereby their value. Barring a handful of well known names, heritage institutions, publicly funded smaller organizations in particular, have always struggled to acquire enough resources to stay operational. Sponsoring, private donations and fundraising events are indispensable. There's a good reason why the Met Gala is a thing. And even the Met struggles financially. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art#Finances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art#Fin... Your comment reflects on the fact that heritage objects are hidden from the public's view when they end up in a private collection. Now, what's on public display in a museum doesn't constitute the entire collection either. It's a selection made by curators and scientists based on historical and cultural significance. The Met collection counts 2 million objects, for instance. Some objects are only put on display once every few decades in a temporary exhibition because their fragility and their intrinsic value require expensive logistics, insurances,... Finally, consider how galleries and museums acquire objects and ammend their collections. It doesn't happen by accident. Either it happens because a private collector bequeaths their own collection to a public institution; or it's because public institutions also participate in auctions. I understand the point you're trying to make. There are, indeed, private collectors who simply acquire objects at auctions which then disappear from the public's view for many decades. That's absolutely not a new thing
  - 6y ago

masklinn 6y ago

The resale value of rare books is nowhere near 0. There are cases in the millions every few years, see Priore/Schulman conviction earlier this year. The difficulty is fencing them for something approaching their value if you’re not part of “that world”, I’d expect that’s what the thief did not consider.

anovikov 6y ago
Trick is, there were definitely lists of them kept somewhere and with books being unique, anyone trying to sell one would get arrested.
- ThePreacherMan 6y ago
  Well, you wont list them for sale on catawiki...but rather trough a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy with refined taste.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > anyone trying to sell one would get arrested. Absolutely not. Again, every few years there are cases of millions worth of books having been stolen (and sold). Priore operated for 20 years. Discretion is highly valued in the art world, and collectors are generally careless at best, they will balk at obviously stolen items but a thin layer of legitimacy will suffice. But that is why fencing rate art is not trivial unless un steal to order.

cycomanic 6y ago

I'm sure the thief stole them out of greed, but didn't know who to sell to. Now the people buying and owning those books keeping them in their private collections, they typically do this out of vanity I would argue similar to people owning expensive art (although some do this also purely for investment). A great book talking about the secret work of rare books is "the club dumas", which I highly recommend. The movie was quite bad on the other hand.

enriquto 6y ago
> they typically do this out of vanity I would argue similar to people owning expensive art Seeing how many science libraries are simply throwing away so many historically significant math books, I'd say that quite a few of these "vanitous" people may be simply concerned about their conservation. A similar thing, in a much larger scale, may happen for art. As they say, today's thief is tomorrows conservator.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Haha, not that band of romanian thieves. They are quite dumb at times, I remember another case few years ago where they stole some paintings from a poorly secured museum, brought them home and one of them got scared of getting caught and burned them.
jaifraic 6y ago
It sounds like a quite complicated, risky and expensive job to do just out of greed without any idea what to do with the stolen goods.
sumtechguy 6y ago
Many of these items have a fence value of near 0. The second they pop up in a real auction the police are involved and the whole chain goes down. Their real value usually comes in as a bargaining chip if caught for some other crime. The second way is if someone specific wants to have an item. There is no real 'market' for these type of stolen items. The third way is to 'ransom' them. A stolen TV has value as it is semi common and usually you can offload it. A stolen one of a kind piece of artwork/book/etc basically has a 'investigate me' sign on it.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

It didn't say if the thieves stole other things, I suppose they probably did steal other stuff as well as this, then figure out when they were going to sell things - huh we can't sell this stuff right now, let's keep it for later.

ThePreacherMan 6y ago

I'll be honest. I'd love to have some of these books in my personal collection...if I had found a way to buy them - I would've done so. I guess I have to do some networking with art thieves...