Toronto book thieves caught on tape
The Hartford Courant has a quick article on a pair of book thieves literally caught red handed. After noticing an earlier theft, the owner installed security cameras and actually managed to catch the nattily dressed couple stealing books. It is always nice when book thieves are caught. I'll do my best to get a copy of the film.
Labels: bookish, random bits
posted by LuxMentis @ 1:21 PM
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3 Comments:
Ian - you wrote that your link offered "a quick article". As Sherlock Holmes would say, however, it is a case that presents some interesting features.
Perhaps the version you originally saw was shorter than what I read. That happens with online news articles sometimes.
International trade in printed engravings worth tens of thousands in dollars is the issue. It is implied that there are no innocent victims in this case. Everybody has their hands dirty because the accused couple were selling stolen prints (cut out of books) from some of the very people they were selling similar art pieces to, stolen from still other rare book dealers.
If academic or privately endowed public libraries are ever accused of "trading" in stolen books on such a two-way street, I would like to see the coverage of any ongoing investigation. I wonder . . in the stolen maps case was this a factor, an element of the investigation as it is in the case you just blogged?
Oops. The first use of the word 'selling' should read 'stealing'.
That is what fascinates me about all this.
Well, a "pretty quick" article, perhaps.
I would certainly agree that some of those who bought from this couple may have engaged in, if you'll excuse the legal term, "willful blindness." I am not certain the same is true of the original dealers.
To clarify, while generally distasteful, removing plates from books is not, in and of itself, illegal. I can admit that there are times when a book is so badly damaged that the highest and best use is to disbind it and sell off the plates. There are, of course, many (too many) who actively acquire and disbind perfectly good books to sell of the plates...and while I personally find it...er...wrong, it is not illegal.
That said, there has certainly been and will continue to be cases where people remove insular plates/maps from books they do not own...and from books that are often of great historical merit. This is both illegal, morally objectionable and an affront of our collective cultural history. If there is a Hell, I am pretty certain there is an entire plane waiting for those how engage in such things.
The problem, of course, is that there are always people (and, at time, institutions) willing to at best be willfully blind and at worse actively participate in the transfer of stolen material. They are hard cases to make and pursue (hell, virtually all of the major history museums are built on collections that were plundered from foreign countries...and should, rightfully, be returned).
We shall see how it plays out. I'm definitely watching this and related cases with interest...and remain annoyed about the Smiley outcome ("cooperated" indeed...he simply knew it would look good...it warranted no leniency whatsoever, imnsho).
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