Featured Antique firearms thief sentenced to one day jail.

This may be of interest to some of you:

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a...day&utm_term=Daily Newsletter [ALL] [MORNING]

This quote is unbelievable:

"I never really thought about it back then, and now it’s all come out. I didn’t think it would make a hell of a lot of difference.”

Honestly?

 

I hope all the items were all returned to where they belong.

 

I find it unbelievable that any judge would so commute a sentence.
I doubt one single payment for the $50,000 fine will be made.
Why should that thief change now? I hate thieves..

 

I don't think he will be able to steal anything now.
"Hunched over in a wheelchair, his breathing labored,"

Although he wouldn't be the first criminal to experience a miraculous return to good health a day or so later.

 

Yah I read that and thought it was an act for the judge ... smh

 

The first time I visited the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo was back in the early '70s. It's a nice collection, and one of the things they have is a half dozen glass figurines from designs by Picasso. When I initially visited the gallery, these figurines, which are only a couple inches high, were just sitting there, out in the open, on a window ledge. I was so tempted to just slip one in my pocket.

The last time I was there, decades later, they were sealed in a glass case.



I read one account that suggested several of the African masks in Picasso's possession were stolen from museums. He reputedly had a friend who would drop by saying, "I'm on my way to the Louvre, can I get you anything?"

 

Oh, just a Davinci, and maybe a Turner or two. The statute of limitations ran out on his older crimes, and if he hadn't tried to sell the gun they wouldn't have caught him for this one either.

And if he really is sick, the State would be responsible for his health care if they jugged him. Cheaper to leave him out in the wild, since odds are he's not out there stealing more stuff.

 

The question begging for an answer is how the heck do you walk out of a museum with a 5 foot long flintlock rifle?!
What’s that in your pocket sir?

Brings a memory back of going to the Natural History Museum for a school trip and one of the girls stealing a notebook from the gift shop and showing it off on the bus home.
I was horrified and told my mum that night.
Next day we all got hauled into the hall and you can imagine the lecture about having to own up!.
I was so naive that it was about 20 years before my mum told me she had told the school. I had no idea the aftermath was anything to do with me. Now I wonder why they didn’t just discipline the one girl but it was an odd school anyway.
Ofsted would have a field day if they inspected it now. Fortunately it got bulldozed for a housing estate.

 

You have to wonder if the housing estate is haunted by the ghosts of traumatized students past.

 

My late partner and I went to the Hart Cluett museum in Troy Ny .Its a magnificent townhouse chock full of amazing things. Mind you this was 1998 or so. Anyway,we go in and pay admission and the docent told us to keep our coats on (it was winter) as they couldnt afford to heat it very well. Also,there was no one to guide us so she said to wander at will. We even had to turn the lights on and off as we entered rooms ! Anyhoo ,we are wandering around and there is literally stuff laying around everywhere . If I were a thief I could have loaded my pockets and they would have been none the wiser. In one room was a glass cabinet crammed full of ivory,sterling and even what looked like gold objects. I reached out,grabbed the handle and the door swung open. I'll be honest,if I ever thought to be a thief that moment was it ! here we are,in bulky winter coats,no cameras and no one around and a cabinet full of gorgeous smalls ! I am sure by now their security is up to standards but Ive often wondered how much they lost before that happened.

 

Definitely!
When I look back now there was some diabolical teaching and downright shocking practices. There is an old girls page and some of the revelations have been eye opening.

 

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. They were begging a thief to have at.

Uhmmm... eek? And a bad time was had by all other than the sadists and psychopaths?

 

Amazing that he could get away with it so often and for that long.

Have any of you watched "This Is A Robbery" on Netflix about the Gardner heist?
The last person alive that was linked to the theft just died. I don't think those paintings will ever surface again.

 

You never know. Some boosted Nazi loot just turned up a few years ago. Then again they could be in a warehouse with the Ark!

 

I have. It unfolded like a whodunnit, a well made documentary series.
Amazing that it could happen in the first place. All in all a series of stupidities throughout the how and why and the investigation.

 

@Mill Cove Treasures Do you know - Is that still available to watch?

 

I watched it about a month ago, so it is worth looking for it.

 

Good. I'll see if I can get it here.