A List of Lost Valuables
Category: Military
Item Lost: A Mark 15 Thermonuclear Hydrogen Bomb serial number “No. 47782”
Last Seen: 1958, falling from a B-47 off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia
Value: Indeterminate
In 1958 the United States Air Force lost a 12-ft long, 7,600 pound Mark 15 hydrogen bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia. So much for the phrase “military intelligence.” The bomb was jettisoned to save the lives of the aircrew when their B-47 bomber collided with an F-86 fighter jet. According to 1966 Congressional testimony by then Assistant Secretary of Defence W.J. Howard, the bomb was a “complete weapon, a bomb, with a nuclear capsule” and a plutonium trigger. The crew did not see an explosion when the bomb impacted the sea and after months of searching the military announced that the location of the bomb remains unknown. The bomb has never been recovered and remains somewhere in the silt at the bottom of Wassaw Sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_B-47_crash
Category: Jewels
Item Missing: The Florenting Diamond
Last Seen: 1918, Switzerland
Value: Unknown
The Florentine Diamond is a light yellow diamond with slight green overtones. It is cut in the form of an irregular nine-sided 126-facet double rose cut, with a weight of 137.27 carats (27.454 g). The stone is also known as the Tuscany Diamond and the Austrian Yellow Diamond. In its history, the stone has been owned by Europe’s most powerful families Fuggers, the Hapsburgs, and the Medici. In 1657, the stone was estimated to have the equivalent value of $750,000. After WWI the stone was taken to Switzerland by the Austrain Imperial Family. The stone was then stolen sometime after 1918. The present whereabouts of the diamond are unknown.
http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/florentinediamond.html
Category: Jewels
Item Missing: La luz de dia
Last seen: Geneva, 2004
Value: $24,243,263
La luz de dia is the oldest known cut diamond ever found. This blue colored diamond has a weight of 201 carats (40.25 g). Until 1932, it was owned by “Diamond International.” It was then acquired by the Spanish Royal family and sold at auction in Geneva in 2004 for $24,432,263. However, two weeks later the gem was stolen and has not been seen since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_luz_de_dia
Category: Jewels
Item Missing: uncut diamonds
Last seen: Schiphol Airport , Amsterdam, 2005
Value: $118 million
Thieves stole a KLM truck full of diamonds headed for Antwerp at gunpoint.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/five-largest-diamond-heists2.htm
Item Missing: The Akbar Shah Diamond
Last Seen: 1886 in the possession of London jewler George Blogg
Value: Unknown
Mined in India, this 116 carat, pear-shaped diamond has random faceting and two Arabic inscriptions. The Akbar Shah Diamond was reportedly part of the original Peacock Throne of the Mughal Empire. It was purchased in 1886 in Istanbul by George Blogg, who recut it from 116 carats to 71.70 carats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_diamonds
Catgory: Cash
Item Missing: Briefcases containing $200,000 in cash
Last know location: 11/24/1971 8:13PM exiting a Boeing 727 somewhere above Ariel, WA
Value: $200,000
A man travelling under the name D.B. Cooper held an entire flight for ransom. He was given $200,000 in marked bills and the plane took off. Cooper Parachuted out of the aft staircase of the Continental Airlines Boeing 727 above the state of Washington. Cooper vanished into thin air and his identity remains a mystery. In 1980, $5,880 was found on the banks of the Columbia River by a young boy. The money matched the bills given to Cooper. The remainder of the ransom money was never found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
Item Missing: Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius
Last Seen: October, 1995
Value: $3 million
In October 1995, the FBI received notice that a Stradivarius violin had been stolen from the NYC apartment of Erica Morini, a noted concert violinist. Made in 1727 by Antonio Stradivari, the violin is known as the Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius and is estimated to be worth $3 million dollars.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/davidoff.htm
Category: Treasure Trove
Item Missing: The Amber Room
Last Seen: 1945, Konigsberg, Germany
Value: Priceless
A room of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg, Russia. It covered 55 sq meters, contained over 6 tons of amber, and took over 10 years to construct. The Amber Room was looted during WWII by Nazi Germany and brought to Konigsberg Castle. It may have been put aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff which was sunk by a Soviet submarine. Knowledge of its whereabouts was lost in the chaos at the end of the War and its fate remains a mystery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_room
Category: Art
Item Missing: Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man, 1514
Last Seen: possibly in the possession of Hans Frank at his villa in Neuhas, 1945
Value: Priceless
Portrait of a Young Man is a painting by Raphael Sanzio, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. In 1798 the painting was acquired by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski along with Da Vinci’s painting “The Lady with an Ermine.” In 1939 the Czartoryski museum in Krakow, Poland was forced close as a result of the Nazi invasion. The Gestapo found the precious works hidden by the Czartoryski family. In 1945, Dr. Hans Frank, the German governor of Poland and a personal friend of Hitler brings the paintings along with him while evading capture. When Frank is finally captured, the Allies Commission for the Retrieval of Works of Art claimed the stolen paintings on behalf of the Czartoryski Museum. However, the Raphael and 843 other artifacts are missing from the collection.
http://www.czartoryski.org/museum.htm
http://www.sagerecovery.com/images/raphaelbig1.jpg
http://www.sagerecovery.com/looted-art/looted-objects/
Category: Art
Item Missing: Works by Rembrandt, Manet, Vermeer, and Degas among others
Last Seen: March 1990
Value: $300 million
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Robbery
In March 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, was robbed by two unknown men. In just 81 minutes, the thieves removed works of art valued around $300 million. These include: Vermeer, The Concert; Rembrandt, A Lady and Gentleman in Black; Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee; Rembrandt, Self-Portrait; Govaert Flinck, Landscape with Obelisk; Manet, Chez Tortoni. Also stolen were five sketches by Degas.This theft is the largest art heist in history. A reward of $5,000,000 is still outstanding for information leading to the return of the paintings. The museum still displays the paintings' empty frames in their original locations due to the strict provisions of Gardner's will, which instructed that the collection be maintained, unchanged.
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9986/01stolenartsat8.jpg image
source http://www.amassart.com/articles/9
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/isabella.htm
Category: Art/Museum robbery
Item Missing: Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh, and Monet
Last Seen: Zurich, 2008
Value: 112,000,000 Euros
Four paintings by famous artists were stolen by three armed gangs in ski masks from the E.G. Buehrle Museum in Zurich, Switzerland. While one of the gangs forced museum employees on the floor, the other two thieves snatched four oil paintings off the wall. The robbers’ haul included “The boy in the Red Vest” by Cezanne, “Viscount Lepic and His Daughters” by Degas, “Blossoming Chestnut Branches” by Van Gogh and “Poppies Near Vetheuil” by Monet. The estimated value of four stolen masterpieces is more than 112,000,000 Euros. The event took place on February 2, 2008. http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/959/03stolenartspn2.jpg
Category: Art
Item Missing: 2 Van Gogh Paintings
Last Seen: December 2002
Value: $30 million
In December 2002, two thieves used a ladder to climb to the roof and break in to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In just a few minutes the thieves stole two paintings: Van Gogh’s View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, valued at $30 million. Dutch police convicted two men in December 2003, but did not recover the paintings. The paintings were “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen”
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2937/06stolenartsbe0.jpg
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/vangogh.htm
Category: Art
Item Missing: Caravaggio
Last Seen: 1969
Value: $20 Million
In October 1969, two thieves entered the Oratory of San Lorenzo, Palermo, Italy and removed the Caravaggio Nativity from its frame. Experts estimate its value at $20 million. The neither the perpatrators nor the paintings have been found.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/caravaggio.htm
Category: Art
Item Missing: Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Dali
Last Seen: 2006
Value: Unknown
On February 24, 2006, about 4:00 PM, four works of art and other objects were stolen from the Museu Chacara do Céu, Rio de Janeiro, by four armed men. Claude Monet, 1880-1890, Marine, Pablo Picasso, 1956, Dance, Henri Matisse, 1905, Luxembourg Garden, Salvador Dali, 1929, Two Balconies. The value of the works has not been estimated.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/topten/museu_chacara_do_ceu.htm
Honerable Mention/Interesting Story:
Art in the Attic
In 2006, a Manhattan eccentric who went by the alias William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland passed away, leaving behind an extensive collection of art piled inside his one bedroom East 72nd Street apartment. Christie’s has valued the higher-end works at around $2.4M. 300 pieces Further investigation by both the FBI and Christie’s would conclude that various pieces were reported missing from the 1960s and 70s, including work by Picasso, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Claes Oldenburg, and Alex Katz. The paintings are thought to be stolen.
http://artobserved.com/fbi-queries-public-on-valuable-art-cache-found-in-upper-east-side-manhattan-apartment/
Nazi Treasure in Lake Toplitz aka Operation Bernhard
Operation Bernhard was the codename of a secret Nazi plan devised during the Second World War by the RSHA and the SS to destabilise the British economy by flooding the country with forged Bank of England £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes. It is the largest counterfeiting operation in history. Using concentration camp labor the Nazis produced £134,610,810 worth of the most perfect counterfeit bills in history. Most of this counterfeit currency was dumped int Lake Toplitz in Switzerland and recovered by divers in 1959.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toplitz
The Theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911(and subsequent return)
I should probably do homework now. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment