Footnote 11 – Magnificent Obsession: The Private World of an Antiquities Collector

Because objects found before 1978 are legal, the natural tendency is to claim that a questioned object was found before that date. This is a little reminiscent of the story the famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow used to tell: While eating breakfast one morning, he heard on the radio that a bank had just been robbed and that the thief had absconded with 25 crisp new $100 bills. Shortly after Darrow arrived at his office, a young man rushed in, saying that he was likely to be charged with bank robbery and would need representation. Darrow told the young man that this was a serious charge and that the fee would be quite high. The man assured him that he was prepared to pay and pulled from his pocket a crisp roll of $100 bills. Darrow declined the retainer, saying that he could not take stolen money—at least not money that had been stolen so recently. Similarly, with antiquities: Only recently stolen artifacts are shunned.