A premier American numismatic collection seems to be having problems with documentation. In 2007 the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs began an investigation into the theft of coins from the museum. At the same time they discovered that yet another 23 coins and pattern coins and a 73-pound silver bar are missing from the American Numimatic Associations Money Museum, together they were worth an estimated $420,590 by 2008 market standards.
“The additional missing coins were discovered at the same time as the other stolen and missing coins: during an evaluation after the theft was discovered,” said Jay Beeton, ANA director of public relations. [...] The ANA said it did not list the missing coins at the same time the list of stolen coins was released Jan. 12 to avoid confusion.Yeah right. I think the only source of confusion is how this can possibly have happened, and what real advantages there were (apart from saving face) in keeping both events quiet for so long when greater transparency would have increased the chances of the missing items being spotted if offered for sale. By now they've probably passed through several hands and are safely shut away in some private collector's cabinet.
'Coins Missing from ANA Money Museum', February 07, 2012
2 comments:
The story seems similar to the grand book theft from the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.
The books were stolen - by an employe - in the years 1968-78, but the missing books were noticed as early as 1975. In 1998 the thief started selling some of the books and went on with that up to his death in fall 2002 without it being noticed. When his family after his death tried to sell more books they got caught and the identity of the thief was discovered. Most of the 1,600 books he stole was found at the family with "only" about 100 missing.
Only after all this a list of missing books was made public in May 2005. As far as I know none of the 1,700 books on the list has turned up since then.
Well, this is the second such event to affect the ANS Museum. it's pretty significant that the coineys are the first to note when a brown skinned foreigner nicks something from a "source country" museum. You will note that NONE of the coiney blogs (like the so-called "Cultural property Observer") have even hinted that something like this happens in the USA too.
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