Robbers inside museums : a stuffed birds plucker and 2 amateur art lovers.

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A Swiss will be judged tomorrow by a criminal court in Basel. During years he plucked stuffed eagles, hawks and other buzzards (a total of 127 different kinds of birds) in various museums in Europe and collected 10 500 feathers on 458 different stuffed birds now bald because of his crimes. The damages caused to these museums are evaluated at 6 million Swiss Francs. There are all sort of nuts stealing inside museums and this funny news that I read today remembered me another funny story told by a museum curator. Two young teens known to steal car radios decided one day to move up a gear. There was a museum in their town, and there was certainly something interesting there that would sell better than a car radio. They did a first visit to do some spotting. The guards followed them closely due to their age and clothing. They showed an interest for a showcase containing several vases from Emile Gallé. These vases were attractive. They went to the local library and they surprised the librarian when they asked for books about Emile Gallé instead of comic strips. On one of the book they found the pictures of 2 of the vases in their local museum and stole the pages with these vases before coming back to the museum during the weekend to steal the vases. They had noticed that the bullet proof showcase would be easy to open by the top with the same technique they were using to remove the windshield of a BMW : a simple cutter. This time the guards were less suspicious. They managed to remove the top of the showcase, but they triggered an alarm when they took the vases and ran outdoors in the street with the vases under their clothes without being arrested. One vase was broken when they arrived in the block of flats where they were living. Well, there was one remaining and it was certainly worth something. It was worth more than they were thinking but also completely unsaleable in Europe where an item pertaining to a public collection is said «inalienable» which can cause a lot of troubles to an antique dealer if it is found in a shop. And any antique dealer has to ask an ID and pays with a check. They did not managed to sell it and had an idea found in a movie : the insurance of the museum would certainly pay for the vase ! Except for items traveling or loaned by another museum, a public museum has generally no insurance because it would be too expensive, but they were not knowing this detail and called the museum to ask who was insuring their collections. At this moment in the museum, there was a police commissionner from a brigade specialized in the international traffic of work of arts. He was thinking that the vases had been stolen for a Russian or Japanese collector wanting them in a collection. The phone call asking for the insurer changed his mind, and the museum gave one of his phone numbers. He was the insurer and received quickly a call asking if he would pay for one of the vases stolen in the museum. He would pay for both. Alright, they would call him back. The phone call was located in a public booth near their block of flat. And indeed the police caught them in the booth when they called again. They probably realized quickly that they should have stuck on car radios. Stealing works of arts does not pay. Picture : 1 vase by Emile Gallé, Petit Palais, Paris. Photo in the public domain.