That's exactly what's being done with some antiquities often much more than 20 years after the fact.

Steve B

Egypt and a few other countries I have visited of would love to get some stuff back:)

I have his two Images Of America books in my baseball library, the one on on the Royal Rooters and Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, both of which, in my opinion, are pretty good. Now he's lower than a cockroach. What a waste.

Leon, I respect you as a person and it's obvious you're a smart and caring guy. I also appreciate you directly responding to me even though I'm sure this is a subject you're sick of reading about on the forum. I have a fundamental difference of opinion on this though. The following post is not about you or your experiences but rather just my opinion on the subject and some posts I've seen here.

IHHO..

A lazy employee or understaffing does not constitute negligence. More importantly, the NYPL collection is a public collection. No matter how long anybody filibusters or how many times an item is sold, an item removed from the NYPL will never actually belong to anyone but the public. You can possess this property, sell or trade it, but in the end you will always just be possessing stolen poperty at the expense of the greater public and the community you spend so much time participating in. If history, knowledge, and community is important to us we should be enthusiastically returning these items to the public and we should be praising those that do. I'm not trying to villainize anyone. We all love this hobby and sports history but anybody possessing items from a public archive is explicitly hurting the community, both present and future.

It is true that many items in an archive are uncatalogued and may never be viewed by researchers. It's true that some archive employees may potentially be lazy or self serving. These are merely hollow justifications though. You never know what a researcher may find important in fifty years. Or what one item can tell us about another. A small theft can turn out to be quite a significant loss to future researchers. I could go on and on about this but I think everyone gets my point.

This argument of ownership doesn't even get into the potential legal and financial risk of owning such materials. A quick web search will show countless other collectors who have gotten burned for owning items taken from archives, libraries, and other public and private collections.

I won't be posting anymore on subjects although I will continue to read (how can I stop?).

I understand that others may have differing opinions but I believe our overall goals are the same.

Wishing everyone the best and their collecting endevours,

David Lu$t1g

(Edited last name for web searching purposes. Thanks).

Good post. I think you should continue to share your views whether or not they are in sync with Leon's, or others'. In the end, even the moderator is just one guy with an opinion; his opinion doesn't define the forum or dictate anyone else's, and I am sure he would agree.

Hi David
I can certainly respect your opinion.
I don't expect other members to agree or disagree with me only to have civil dialogue and enjoy the hobby we love. Happy collecting....

ps.... I think it's worth reiterating that I do feel stolen items should generally be returned to their owners. Unfortunately we don't live in a black and white world. And as far as I know I am the rightful owner of everything in my collection :).

pps...and of course I agree with Peter. The only thing I learned as a liberal arts major is that I am in the minority of opinions of the majority in those classes, by a long shot. Sometimes I was, or felt like I was, the lone person on the other side of a view for the whole class.

Side tracking a bit-- but since it was brought up--, for Egypt and China there are recent laws put in place (1983 for Egypt and 1991 for China) making it illegal for certain types of artifacts to be exported-- and those laws are respected internationally. If you are a foreigner and bought the item before the year of law-- or the item you bought was originally exported before the date-- you are the legal owner and the item can be bought and sold any number of times (though it's good if there is proof that it was originally purchased before the date)-- after the year, you've broken the law and don't own it and can't sell it. The laws aren't retroactive. You'd likely be prosecuted pretty hard by those countries too for illegally exporting items that are considered part of their national heritage.

On PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, someone brought in a valuable ancient Egyptian figure. A sticker on the bottom showed that not only had it once been purchased from a well known and respected old time dealer of Egyptian antiquities, but that it was purchased before 1983 and was legal to own and resell. Good news for the guy who brought it to the show . . . On the flip side, I saw a guy on the show bring in an item where the appraiser told him that it was very nice but that he couldn't legally resell it.

Also, China does still allow antique but not ancient items to be sold to people outside their country, and the government puts a red sticker on those items indicating that they were legally exported. But, as said, if you have a relic that your parents bought on a 1960s vacation to Cairo or Bejing, you are the legal owner and can sell it as you wish.

In museum studies, we had a big section on the international law and ethics of items of important national heritage that are in museums all around the world-- many taken by foreigners, including foreign governments, from the countries years and sometimes centuries ago. The Elgin Marbles of Ancient Greece in the British Museum is probably the most famous case study that is still hotly debated between the two countries. Often times, the law is clear, while the ethics, along with other practical and philosophical considerations, is what is the matter for debate. I believe Britain has legal right to the marbles, but many, including the Greek government, said they should still return them. And the ethical and related issues often are not black and white, with compelling arguments from both sides-- I could detail Britain's non-legal arguments why they should keep them.

I could also go into the rules and ethics of museums deaccessioning (selling) items, but I've already bored you enough in this post-- though I can say that most non-profit museums, and all the major ones, are licensed/accredited and there are strict rules about how, when and what for they can sell items from the permanent collection. For example, one rule is they can only sell items from the permanent collection to purchase other items for their permanent collection. They aren't allowed to sell permanent collection items even to cover the operating or building budget or to hire new employees. If the Museum of Modern Art sells a Modigliani to finance the procurement of a Rembrandt that would be okay rule-wise, but if they sell the Modigliani to finance a new cafeteria it would lose its accreditation. This issue came to head when the City of Detroit wanted the public Detroit Art Museum to sell valuable art to cover city debt, but museum rules forbade it. Luckily, it was worked out and the art kept by the museum.

Speaking for myself, no, not at all tome this is all fascinating.

Steve B

I agree!!

My final museology thesis project was doing a museum exhibit on the outsider artist Henry Darger. Now, there's a curious topic.

Nice "Papillon" reference however, you are confusing your countries. Suriname, either spelling is accepted, is Dutch, the former Dutch Guiana. It changed its name in 1948. French Guiana, located next to Suriname, is the home of the infamous Ile de Diable as chronicled in the book by Henri Charriere later made into the movie of the same name.