OT: Warning, Collector's Disease

After confessing to a string of museum heists that went undetected for 50 years, a Montgomery County man will spend one day in jail

Some of us have it worse than others

I like details of how he got long guns out unnoticed. Did he suddenly have a wooden, stiff leg ?

Bootlegging a gun ...every kid had to bootleg his first gun into the house.....but some of the antique guns had 40" barrels?....Maybe he dressed as a minuteman and quoted the second amendment to the attendant.........and just maybe ,he walked out with the goodies ,and no one took any notice.

Back in the good old days when they had boarding schools,and I was at this particular school-one of the other boys had a single barrel .410 for sale. It was in his mac hanging on the coat pegs! He sold it eventually-the school never knew about it!

That is pretty crazy that many of the thefts went un-noticed, and he was just hoarding them. There was a case in Texas a few years back where an old man was robbing banks, his getaway vehicle was his pickup truck, he just waved politely at folks as he drove home. When they finally caught him and asked why, his answer was "it made me feel alive again", LOL.

Edit: The story The Story of the 92-Year-Old Bank Robber

dalmatiangirl61 said:

When they finally caught him and asked why, his answer was "it made me feel alive again", LOL.

Click to expand...

Sometimes Texas is okay

One of the big problems with museum thefts is that they are often never reported. I know of several cases recently where the museum "officials" don't want to admit they lost something so just say it's "no longer on display." About 25 years ago the Pennsylvania State Police broke a ring that specialized in stealing Civil War guns from local historical societies. Many of them still had the museum tags on them identifying where they came from but when the police called to return them, some of the museums denied ever having them! There was a similar case recently where a CW presentation sword was stolen from Brown University. They never reported it and when it was offered for sale openly, and bought by a collector with a less than sterling reputation, they had to go to court to reclaim it. He, the collector, claimed that since they hadn't reported the theft he should be able to keep it. Thankfully, that was not accepted but the museum was complicit in covering the theft up.

A whole branch of law deals with when and how a person may have "good title" to something in posession.

Many years ago a local yokel from Lake Helen Fl. would go to Daytona (20 miles)every year and steal a few race cars.He lived in an orange grove and used them to run around the local dirt roads. Finally got caught.Doller wise he had quite a collection.