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$35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

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Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#241

Post by _fat_santa »

Arainach wrote: post #20
tomcam wrote: post #19

What amazes me about all these stories is the ridiculously low prices the thrift store charged. Here in the Seattle area, everything seems to grossly overpriced in thrift stores.

Goodwill in particular moves items between markets and prices them based on the local economy. Gone are the days of 2010 when you could walk into the Bellevue Goodwill and find lightly used designer clothing that some retired Microsoft engineer was tired of. Now everything's priced higher than eBay and there's no reason to stop by. Everyone else wants to be a "Boutique" and charge high end prices for used goods. Blam…

This hasn't been my experience. I recently moved to Colorado and I think they have the best Goodwill's in the country. Not for clothing but all the other stuff, I would never own a $250 coffee maker but I got it at Goodwill for $20.

My best find though is back around 2015, I walked into a Goodwill in Buckhead Atlanta (Atlanta's Beverly Hills) looking for a suit for an interview. Found a matching 5 piece Hugo Boss suit, all in all cost me about $50 but had a retail of I think around $2500. Absolutely insane find, ended up selling it on eBay for a few hundred and getting a brand new suit.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#242

Post by trumpablehump »

ejb999 wrote: post #227
robonerd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt the Germans paid anybody when they took it from Italy. Why? The museum was not built by nazis.

germans were invading and pillaging a long time before Nazi's came to power and that is not unique to Germany - think Napoleon, so it is more likely than not that it was simply stolen, perhaps repeatedly over a couple thousand years.

And the romans before that. Heck they even made just about to Aschaffenburg, where this relic was stolen.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#243

Post by CPLX »

notadev wrote: post #224
tpmx wrote: post #4

Back at home, Young had a problem: She was in possession of a looted piece of ancient art. She couldn't keep it. She couldn't sell it. And giving it back to its rightful owners was a lot harder than it sounds. “At that point, I realized I was probably going to need some help,” Young says. “I was probably going to need an attorney.” So she hired a lawyer in New York who specializes in international art law, Leila Amin…

Most certainly looking for a payout. Has anyone been to a thrift store recently? About 30% of people are in need/want of inexpensive secondhand items, while the rest of the crowd — smartphones in hand — are trying to see what can be resold for profit on EBay. This whole “side hustle” economy is killing the thrift store as an source for people in need to find inexpensive goods.

I see a variation on this comment all the time now and it makes me slightly crazy. It feels like the product of extremely online culture (or just Twitter) where people work up a hypothesis of outrage with no connection to reality at all and just run with it forever until it's fact.

The thrift store has never been about getting the items on sale to needy people that's just literally not the philosophy behind the entire concept.

The thrift store model has been about getting money from the people who shop there who are people who have money but not having to pay for the goods they sell because they are charitably donated to be sold and then using the money they make to advance the mission of the charity.

It's a fundraising concept. The funds come from people who have funds. The goods come from people that have spare goods. And then THE MONEY THEY MAKE goes to actually do good in the world. The limiting factor on every thrift store model I've ever seen is having enough customers. There's always tons and tons of stuff to sell, many have to throw away half the donations they get because there's no room.

The people who are in thrift stores buying things for Ebay and increasing the money that goes to the charity are HELPING the thrift store, not killing it. This mindless outrage is literally the opposite of the actual dynamic at work here.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#244

Post by DuckyC »

ginko wrote: post #223
moffkalast wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stealing art is a war crime. Is there anything that isn't a war crime at this point? Declaring war? War crime. Making a plan for war? War crime. Deportation? War crime. Blowing stuff up? War crime. Stealing art? Believe it or not, also war crime.

>Declaring war? not a war crime >Making a plan for war? not a war crime >Deportation? war crime. >Blowing stuff up? depends on what you blow up. >Stealing art? war crime.

Deportation is a war crime?

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#245

Post by mullen »

disgu wrote: post #188
O__________O wrote: post #3

Odd, why is this Roman sculpture being returned to Germany? It’s obviously not a German artifact and while I might be wrong, I assume it was “looted” from Italy.

Are you being serious? The Roman Empire covered Germany and it covered that specific part of Germany (Aschaffenburg) as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

The "Holy Roman Empire" was neither Holy, Roman or an Empire.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#246

Post by ginko »

DuckyC wrote: post #244
ginko wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Declaring war? not a war crime >Making a plan for war? not a war crime >Deportation? war crime. >Blowing stuff up? depends on what you blow up. >Stealing art? war crime.

Deportation is a war crime?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation#Military_occupatio...

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#247

Post by moffkalast »

ginko wrote: post #223
moffkalast wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stealing art is a war crime. Is there anything that isn't a war crime at this point? Declaring war? War crime. Making a plan for war? War crime. Deportation? War crime. Blowing stuff up? War crime. Stealing art? Believe it or not, also war crime.

>Declaring war? not a war crime >Making a plan for war? not a war crime >Deportation? war crime. >Blowing stuff up? depends on what you blow up. >Stealing art? war crime.

> Declaring war?

> Making a plan for war?

These two are, on the stipulation that it's a war of aggression and not a defensive one.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#248

Post by Aeolun »

newaccount74 wrote: post #174
Aeolun wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem in all those statements is how US law works (e.g. badly). In Europe, yes, I would agree with your assessment.

No, this is just what a lawyer would say. Every time I've consulted a lawyer (in Europe) I was told that the situation is very difficult, and there are big risks involved if I didn't do it properly, and a long and detailed contract would be required to avoid all these risks, and it just so happens that the lawyer I consulted with is very experienced in this area and would offer to set up such a contract for me. The c…

> No, this is just what a lawyer would say.

I meant to say that I trust the legal apparatus in Europe to function more or less correctly even without consulting a lawyer.

Conversely, in the US my idea of what is right generally turns out to be wrong as long as the other party has more money to spend on lawyers.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#249

Post by robonerd »

joosters wrote: post #150
robonerd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article wasn't written by her, that isn't a statement from her. That is the journalist's statement, Matt Largey. It may or may not be completely accurate. What does "couldn't keep it" mean anyway? That she felt morally obliged to return it? Or legally obliged? The article doesn't say.

If you don't trust statements in the article, then you have absolutely nothing to base any of this discussion on. Following your reasoning, why do you trust anything in the story, rather than just select pieces of it - does the bust even exist? Is the person in the story real or just made up? Is the bust even Roman? Everyone here is discussing the situation, given the story reported . What else do we, armchair critic…

Statements from articles should be considered, not absolutely trusted.

> What else do we, armchair critics, have to go on?

Everything outside of the article, the sum of our experience with the way the world works. Our experience with the way people work, the way people will give accounts of their actions that make themselves look good. The way the "telephone game" works, where the more people something goes through, the more uncertainty there is. Presumably, the journalist was told by the woman that she believed she couldn't keep it, yes? But the journalist didn't actually quote what she said. The journalist paraphrased what she said instead, rephrased it in his own words. This is generally fine, but you have to remain cognizant of the fact that it isn't precisely what she said. The comment I responded to claimed "She specifically stated this in her article", which simply isn't true. That commenter failed to perceive the difference between somebody being quoted, and somebody's statements being paraphrased. Even when you trust the journalist to act in good faith, there is a big difference between quoting somebody and rephrasing what they said.

Re: $35 sculpture found at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII

#250

Post by robonerd »

asdff wrote: post #165
robonerd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know that. The German museum it was in was built in the 1840s, a hundred years before this sculpture was looted from it. It may well have been legally purchased a century or more before nazis existed.

I could not imagine that whatever this process must have looked like in the 1840s was completely bilateral for all parties. This was the era where you just sent an archaeologist and got some local day laborers to dig where you heard there might be good stuff, and took whatever you wanted back no questions asked.

> I could not imagine that whatever this process must have looked like in the 1840s was completely bilateral for all parties

Then let me help your imagination: A rich Bavarian king frequently goes on holiday in Italy, as was the fashion in Europe at the time. There, he regularly meets and intermingles with rich Italians who share his interests in antiquities. He purchases numerous artifacts from them, at a price both agree is fair.

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