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500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland

Posted by Jamison K Turnbull  
avatar 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 19, 2009 03:16PM
Thats right. Friday night theifs broke into a rock collection at the famed Teigarhorn in the east fjords of Iceland and stole around 500 pieces. Estemated around 15 million Icelandic Kroners,($121,000, or 74,000GBP). So be wary of specimeins being sold from Iceland.

Sorry. It's in Icelandic

[www.mbl.is]
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 19, 2009 04:16PM
nl    
...... :-(

I was in that museum last year ; they had (have) a beautiful collection of zeolites from the Teigarhorn.
The Teigarhorn exposures are on the coastline of the land of the farmer who also owns that museum.
He was collecting there too and selling specimens, from a little shop in the museum. I bought nice pieces from him.
(So... not all specimens now coming on the market will be stolen, they will also be legitimately bought and resold perhaps.)
But this is bad news......... bad news...

By the way: I got an official receipt, with which I could export the Teigarhorn specimens.
but normally, exporting specimens from the Teigarhorn is forbidden. So perhaps the specimens cannot leave Iceland...
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 20, 2009 01:37PM
gb    
Terrible news.

Please keep eyes open everyone. Let's try to get this reported everywhere, and do our best to get a positive result.

Jolyon
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 20, 2009 02:13PM
us    
Some pictures of similar material are here [www.mindat.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2009 04:19PM by Jeffrey Weissman.
don stimpson
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 21, 2009 02:07PM
hello jeffrey, approximately how many pounds of material are we talking about? my icelandic is not so good. best hopes for recovery of the specimens, don
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 21, 2009 04:50PM
se    
Frank PHOTOGRAPHS FROM TEIGARHORN MUSEUM, ICELAND???

If you have any images of the displays it would be very good!
or anyone else!

The spreading of this to colelctors and dealesr should substantially increase the chance to recover those specimens,
if they are offered at any mineral show.

Peter
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 22, 2009 09:01AM
I'll post a warning on the Flemish/Dutch discussion list 'e-Min'. We'll keep an eye open!

Axel
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 22, 2009 02:52PM
This is terrible news; it's fortunate that an organization exists that can disseminate the news quickly. I'd like to raise a possible unintended consequence: the thieves may now try to sell the specimens from a bogus locality or none at all. I realize this will diminish their "take", but I don't think concerned collectors should assume that specimens labeled from other sites can't be part of the theft.
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 22, 2009 03:05PM
The last such theft of similar scope that I'm aware of were the many fine specimens taken at night from Marcus Origlieri at Tucson in February 2008. Turns out they weren't offered for sale anywhere - they were all still in the home of a local hoarder/collector a year later when the police found them and returned them to Marcus. The relevant point is that professional thieves may take gold nuggets or gem crystals for the purpose of resale, but when less valuable specimens like zeolites (ie. not gemmy, and no precious metals content) are taken, they are relatively less likely to be offered for sale, and more likely to end up hidden away in the basement of - sadly - a thieving fellow collector.

My worry here is that we have not yet seen photos of the actual specimens taken, so everyone will be on the lookout for any generic icelandic zeolites for sale, and then some poor innocent with legitimate icelandic zeolites for sale at Munich next week will fall under suspicion and will wonder why people are pointng at him/her and whispering to each other.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2009 03:07PM by Alfredo Petrov.
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 22, 2009 03:42PM
ca    
This is really bizarre. 500 pieces would take 25 to 50 flats to pack away and several hours to gather up. Getting them out of the country would not be simple. 500 pieces at $120,000 gives an average price of just under $250. per piece. I suspect that is the "insurance value" and doubt that the thief could recover more than a fraction of that value. So I doubt this was done for monetary gain. This all leads me to agree with Alfredo and points to some local zeolite fanatic quite familiar, and possibly angry, at the museum. Maybe even an inside job, but this is pure speculation and the kind of whispering that Alfredo warned against. I'm sure the local police are considering all these things and at this point the only positive thing is that the thief hopefully packed them well and they may be recovered intact. Collectors have a hard time keeping their mouths shut and that leads me to hope for a speedy recovery.
christophe
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 29, 2009 03:51PM
Hi folks,

I've posted some pictures of the stolen specimens that Christa sent me on Geoforum. If you want to have a look at them, please use this link : www(dot)geoforum(dot)fr/index(dot)php?showtopic=14472&st=0

christophe
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 29, 2009 04:56PM
gb    
If they can send the photos here we could publish them further and more people will get to see them.
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 29, 2009 07:04PM
us    
Using a Chrome browser I could not open the page that shows the specimens.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 29, 2009 11:02PM
de    
Rock,
don´t use Chrome ;-) .. good ol firefox will do .. i saw them without problems :-)

cheers
Roger
avatar Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 29, 2009 11:04PM
us    
I opened the site with a chrome browser
[www.geoforum.fr]
Christophe
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
October 30, 2009 04:26PM
Hello Jolyon,

I can forward you the zips of the pictures I received. Can I use the webmaster's address to do it (there are 7 zips each weighing about 7 Mcool smiley ?

Christophe
Re: 500 zeolites stolen from a museum in East Iceland
November 06, 2009 01:53PM
no    
The thiefs may try to get them out by boat or by the Norröna ferry via the faroes to Denmark. They would obviously risk customs inspections, but unless their car has caught attention, the police would have to inspect all large cars to find the minerals. May be they would smuggle the minerals out in small batches as well. But again, it would hardly be be worth it, economically, which could point to a more "mineralogical" motive.

Zeolites are abundant on Iceland, but the Teigarhorn is famous for special quality, especially the large crystals and the fanned large needle zeolites. There is therefore some hope that they will be reckognised if the thiefs try to sell them.
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