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Would you return Treasure?
NakedZergling
A more apocalyptic post apocalypse Portland OregonRegistered User regular
A more apocalyptic post apocalypse Portland OregonRegistered User regular
So I have come in to possession of an item, that from what i understand i legally own as any statute has long since passed. In researching this item i found this article.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/after-75-years-removing-the-taint-of-a-pilfered-teapot/
The item I have in possession?.........
So now i have this dilemma. my options
1) call up the waldorf, and return it to them?
2) keep it in my collection of rarities/art
3) sell it.
4) return it to whom i received it from with the information i know about it.
For all i know this is a fake (reeeaaally doubt it). For all i know this was legally obtained from the hotel. I didn't get the full back story when i got it but i do know it came from an employee 70+ years ago. I am curious obviously the worth as this article makes it sound as though it's pretty rare.
Should i even feel pity towards a hotel?
The historical element of this combined with the rarity and beauty of it makes it pretty awesome. and i don't especially feel "inclined" to "reunite" the hotel with this.
Thoughts?
Should i keep this and proudly display it?
Should i sell it and try to make a buck?
I won't lie....if im not displaying it, and i legally got this, i feel NO guilt or pressure to return it. If they want it that badly we could arrange something. Sorry to sound all 99%er there, but im poor and this hotel is not struggling.
I don't mean to make this sound more important than it is...it's just a teapot, but i think it's pretty interesting.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/after-75-years-removing-the-taint-of-a-pilfered-teapot/
The item I have in possession?.........
So now i have this dilemma. my options
1) call up the waldorf, and return it to them?
2) keep it in my collection of rarities/art
3) sell it.
4) return it to whom i received it from with the information i know about it.
For all i know this is a fake (reeeaaally doubt it). For all i know this was legally obtained from the hotel. I didn't get the full back story when i got it but i do know it came from an employee 70+ years ago. I am curious obviously the worth as this article makes it sound as though it's pretty rare.
Should i even feel pity towards a hotel?
The historical element of this combined with the rarity and beauty of it makes it pretty awesome. and i don't especially feel "inclined" to "reunite" the hotel with this.
Thoughts?
Should i keep this and proudly display it?
Should i sell it and try to make a buck?
I won't lie....if im not displaying it, and i legally got this, i feel NO guilt or pressure to return it. If they want it that badly we could arrange something. Sorry to sound all 99%er there, but im poor and this hotel is not struggling.
I don't mean to make this sound more important than it is...it's just a teapot, but i think it's pretty interesting.
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Posts
Are you worried that if you give it back you won't have a teapot?
Teapots are not expensive to replace, and if this one was stolen you should not keep it without at least attempting to contact the rightful owners.
Honestly it sounds like you are fishing for approval of your desire to keep it and not say anything. I don't know how much of that you'll get here.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I would say contact the Waldorf and maybe they will give you a reward
If you don't feel guilty keeping it, then keep it. But you asked what we would do, and I would not keep it.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
This is not something necessarily historically significant, or necessarily intrinsically valuable. They want it back as a publicity stunt. Do what you want with it, I would say you are under no moral obligation to them after this long.
As for selling vs keeping. Its probably worth some money, but not much. Sets earn more then individual pieces. Time will increase its value, but it will also increase the chance of damage(which will render it worthless).
Its up to you.
if you like it, why not keep it?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
However the whole bit about:
does sound an awful lot like you trying to justify to yourself stealing it from someone else. You may have to be a bit less evasive and clearer as to the situation if you want useful advice on what people would do in your situation. They way you put things now sounds an awful lot like you are trying to hide something.
Next we'll hear about Motel 6 asking for people to please return little bottles of generic shampoo and oh they promise not to send the secret service after you if you return them right now.
Return the item if you feel like participating in the stunt.
Once it's been reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes, they'll have little use for the teapot.
Sell it or keep it.
On the one hand, it probably isn't worth much, but on the other hand it looks like it only brews a single cup.
@Richy I guess it's up to each person to decide what is beautiful and what isn't. This is a teapot from 1930, the only 2 that the hotel has now are from 1931 and 1937, thus making it the oldest i have found record of. I have seen this on some antique sites, and it fetches a high price.
To compare a 83 year old china and silver teapot to a platic tube of head and shoulders is ignorant. Sorry. If you think it's ugly, no problem, but please, don't try to compare it to a worthless piece of plastic. I collect art, and have no real interest in selling or returning it.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-09-27/europe/42458918_1_air-india-mont-blanc-jewels
Summary: A mountain climber, through sheer serendipity, stumbled upon a treasure chest full of gems. His first impulse, upon finding a LITERAL TREASURE CHEST OF GEMS in a place where no one could possibly be looking for them, was to think, "Surely someone is missing these" rather than, "I have found long lost buried treasure, WHORES AND ALE!"
So he contacted authorities, and after doing some digging, authorities suspect the treasure may be tied to a 1966 plane crash. He may or may not be given the gems back depending on whether clear ownership can be traced.
I found myself surprised by the guy's response, because many people's first response would range from "Free swag!" to "I should figure out if someone is owed these legally" rather than, "I bet someone wants these back and I will turn them over forthwith."
I guess I wasn't clear either. I never said or suggested you stole it. I meant the person who took it from the hotel room 83 years ago stole it in the same sense that someone who takes a shampoo bottle or a pillow or a Gideon Bible from a hotel room today steals it.
I'm also not using these comparisons in an aesthetic sense or construction sense or collectible sense (what any of these items are made of or look like or how many people collect them is irrelevant to me), but in a value sense. I'm guessing that, 83 years ago, these things were mass-produced and placed in all hotel rooms, with spares to replace them when they disappeared. I know the hotel didn't care about them disappearing at the time, and never bothered to try to get them back, so they clearly didn't assign any particular value to them. Back then they were cheap disposable hotel amenities, and in that sense they are equivalent to today's amenities like the aforementioned ones.
Let me put it this way: if in the year 2096 Holiday Inn starts some campaign saying that anyone who 83 years ago took the plastic shampoo bottle from their room was actually stealing from the hotel and all those bottles are historical treasures that should be returned now, I would laugh in their faces.
Those things are provided expressly for you to take.
The Gideon Bibles are provided for you to take? I honestly didn't know that.
Anyway, you could apply my example to any amenity in the room, say a pillow, or a towel, or a glass, or an ash tray (back when they had some), or those tongues to handle ice cubes. Things you're not supposed to take but many people take anyway and the hotel doesn't bat an eye and just replaces them from the massive stockpile of stuff they maintain exactly for that reason.
Depending on jurisdiction, "finders keepers" doesn't necessarily always apply.
For instance in the UK you may not get to keep valuable antiquities, or hoards of precious metals etc. that you find, though you will generally be compensated for them.
The Gideons provide the bibles to reach "the lost," i.e. people who wouldn't otherwise engage with scripture. They don't want people who are already religious grabbing them, apparently, but I'd be really surprised if their policy is that non-christians shouldn't feel free to take the bibles to read at home.
it is the first rule of swagology
I am totally stealing this word.
1. This might not even be authentic. OP said it was dated 1930, Waldorf-Astoria opened in 1931. (though this may be from the partnership between the two separate hotels before the combined building opened, or just made early for the opening)
2. No, we really don't know it was stolen.
3. The hotel has changed ownership at least twice since 1931. Maybe more, I couldn't find a exhaustive source on its ownership history. The Hilton Hotel Corporation doesn't have any better claim on this teapot than the OP.
4. Even if this *was* stolen from the very hands of Joe Waldorf himself the taint of that theft is long gone. Statutes of limitations exist for a reason.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
The taint of the theft maybe but not the taint of the possession of stolen property. If you steal something you don't get to keep it just because you got away with it for 5 years.
Edit: 3 is also false. Just because the hotel changes hands does not mean that items which change hands with the hotel do not belong to the new owner.
He got away with it.
The perfect crime.
Either way, it's not really 'stolen' anymore.
No way man. The way theft works is through the statute of, "Fuck it, it's your now." : so long as you can squirrel it away for a few decades, it totally just becomes yours. and the 'taint' disappears. Steal some art from the Louvre, or receive said stolen item from a friend/family member? Fuck it, it's your now. Receive an antique that you're reasonably sure was pillaged from the home of a war crime victim? Fuck it, it's your now.
Besides, the victim's family is rich and the Louvre is well off, so nicking that shit is legit.
I'm just not following the weight of this discussion. It's a thing that was given to you, that appears to have no immediate value, that once belonged to a Hotel. I'm pretty sure anything you want to do will not be frowned upon by others. It would seem owning it bothers you enough to ask online about having it, maybe it would be better served by returning it to the Hotel, or at least a collector of such items.
kare11.com/news/article/1039960/396/WWII-vet-returns-Japanese-sword-68-years-later
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I'd certainly frown on reselling that teapot.
But, whatever. This isn't H/A, and you can be your own man, whatever that means to you.