Lexblogging: Mr. Yellow?
By The full story is here.
Last December, four Lexingtonians got a notion. One of the four was a student at Transylvania University, and became aware that Special Collections at the library had a 1st edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, an Illuminated Manuscript, a collection of twenty original sketches by John Audubon, and a copy of Hortus Sanitatis. The texts were lightly guarded, and the value was quite large. $5.5 million, in fact.
The four men hatched a plot to steal the books. In apparent tribute to Quentin Tarantino, they took the names Mr. Black, Mr. Yellow, Mr. Pink, and Mr. Green. A critic might note that this rather missed the point of the film, as the four men knew each other and had been friends from high school, and the idea of using an alias is to protect one’s identity, but that’s quibbling. Three of the men invaded the library, subdued the librarian with a stun gun, and made off with the books.
Alas, like Incan matrimonial headmasks, there’s plenty of money in 1st editions of The Origin of Species, if you can move them. But you can’t. The four young men drove to New York where they attempted to sell the books or have the auctioned. Christie’s was justifiably suspicious, and the four returned to Lexington with the books. They were arrested in February after police tracked down the e-mail that one of the four had used to set up the meeting with Christie’s. Now, the four face between 11 and 14 years in prison, as the authorities tend to frown on the theft of $5.5 million worth of rare books. Presumably, security at the Transy library has improved.
I love a great heist film, and I hope that somebody makes a movie out of the exploits of this quartet. I like their plot, too. The fence seems to be a pretty difficult problem. I suppose that it would be best to set up the buyer before stealing the books, or, at the very least, not be so stupid as to try and sell them at one of the most famous auction houses in the world. People notice when you walk into a place and try to dump $5.5 million in rare books. It couldn’t have been that hard to get in touch with the rare book collecting community through the internet. Once you’ve done that, you find a likely buyer and make a cautious approach. Most of all, you would have to be patient, and not let the four books burn a hole in your coffee table.
Anyway, that’s how I would have done it. Not that I’d ever consider doing it.