Guilty plea in ANA theft (apologies if there's another thread on this)

[shirohniichan]

I ran a number of searches including "ANA", "theft" and the thief's name and came up empty, so here's the story.

 

Here's a list of the stolen coins.

 

Shame.

[TonerGuy]

How do you even begin to fence those coins... Arent many easily identifiable ?

 

 

[coinman1794]

I guess hundreds of coins in the collection were missing for years (while the investigation went on), and nobody noticed!

[shirohniichan]

There are a number of coins on the list I'd have liked to have owned, but these stand out:

 

Australia 1813 "Holey Dollar" 5 Shillings - Spalding 20 EF Silver Photo stolen

Australia 1813 "Dump" 15 Pence - Mira dies A/1 VF+ Silver Photo stolen

 

For those of you unfamiliar with these coins, they were the NSW's attempt to keep silver in circulation. They cut the center out of Spanish colonial 8 reales coins, over-valued the remaining ring at 5 shillings and the center piece (the "dump") at 15 d. By over-valuing the coins they almost guaranteed the coins wouldn't go to other markets.

 

[mtnstyne]

I hope he gets the max...

 

"Yeager faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and three years supervised release following any term of imprisonment."

[RWB]

The ANA knew of the loss, but collectors did not. "Do not frighten the rabbit until the trap is set."

[Mokiechan]

How do you even begin to fence those coins... Arent many easily identifiable ?

 

[/quote

 

Looking over the list of stolen coins, I bet a lot of those were undisplayed and therefore not noticed missing until the coins were already long gone and on the auction block. There was probably nothing distinctive enough to point back to the ANA museum like the Bebee 1913 nickel would.

 

Later,

Malcolm

 

 

[WoodenJefferson]

When the Fox guards the Hen House and reports all is fine, you wouldn't suspect there were any chickens missing until there are no eggs left in the basket.

[comicdonna]

When the Fox guards the Hen House and reports all is fine, you wouldn't suspect there were any chickens missing until there are no eggs left in the basket.

This is true. Poor inventory control combined with too much trust in the wrong person allowed this to happen. Even though stealing is against the law, precautions need to be taken to avoid tragedies like this.

[RWB]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

[comicdonna]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

He worked there from January to March. They didn't discover the coins missing until October.

[jtryka]

 

very sad news indeed.

[physics-fan3.14]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

He worked there from January to March. They didn't discover the coins missing until October.

 

How often do you think they inventory the items? When a collection has a million items like they do, I doubt they do a complete audit on a regular basis, or at least very frequently. Their inventory controls may be completely adequate - controlling how a well-intentioned person checks out, moves, transports, registers, an item. However, this person had illegal intentions. The best inventory system in the world isn't going to protect against something like this.

[comicdonna]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

He worked there from January to March. They didn't discover the coins missing until October.

 

How often do you think they inventory the items? When a collection has a million items like they do, I doubt they do a complete audit on a regular basis, or at least very frequently. Their inventory controls may be completely adequate - controlling how a well-intentioned person checks out, moves, transports, registers, an item. However, this person had illegal intentions. The best inventory system in the world isn't going to protect against something like this.

You do have a good point. The list seems quite long though. Being a museum, I assume the pieces are on display, in sight. I guess I thought it was strange that nobody noticed a single item missing for 7 to 8 months. I suppose it's safe to assume, that if someone noticed an item missing, an inventory would be conducted.

[physics-fan3.14]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

He worked there from January to March. They didn't discover the coins missing until October.

 

How often do you think they inventory the items? When a collection has a million items like they do, I doubt they do a complete audit on a regular basis, or at least very frequently. Their inventory controls may be completely adequate - controlling how a well-intentioned person checks out, moves, transports, registers, an item. However, this person had illegal intentions. The best inventory system in the world isn't going to protect against something like this.

You do have a good point. The list seems quite long though. Being a museum, I assume the pieces are on display, in sight. I guess I thought it was strange that nobody noticed a single item missing for 7 to 8 months. I suppose it's safe to assume, that if someone noticed an item missing, an inventory would be conducted.

 

Not everything is on display at a museum. Depending on the size of the museum and the size of the collection, only a tiny fraction may be on display at any one time. For example, the Smithsonian has huge warehouses full of stuff, much of which has never been displayed. The ANA and ANS museums are similar.

[Bugmann1974]

I agree, the ANA museum is no where near large enough to display all of their items.

[comicdonna]

How do you know there was "poor inventory control?"

He worked there from January to March. They didn't discover the coins missing until October.

 

How often do you think they inventory the items? When a collection has a million items like they do, I doubt they do a complete audit on a regular basis, or at least very frequently. Their inventory controls may be completely adequate - controlling how a well-intentioned person checks out, moves, transports, registers, an item. However, this person had illegal intentions. The best inventory system in the world isn't going to protect against something like this.

You do have a good point. The list seems quite long though. Being a museum, I assume the pieces are on display, in sight. I guess I thought it was strange that nobody noticed a single item missing for 7 to 8 months. I suppose it's safe to assume, that if someone noticed an item missing, an inventory would be conducted.

 

Not everything is on display at a museum. Depending on the size of the museum and the size of the collection, only a tiny fraction may be on display at any one time. For example, the Smithsonian has huge warehouses full of stuff, much of which has never been displayed. The ANA and ANS museums are similar.

It would appear that I was wrong.

[michael]

if any of the coins can be located

 

DOES THE CURRENT OWNERS HAVE TO GIVE THE COIN BACK TO THE ANA WITH NO RECOURSE TO WAHT THEY PAID?

 

 

if it went thru 3 or more hands is the ladt person who currently owns it out the $$

 

sort of like musical chairs?

 

 

[$ilverHawk]

Inventory frequency has very little to do with security. What is important is logging each access to inventory, requiring multiple key access to inventory, complete search of all individuals that request access to inventory and video recording of each inventory transaction etc. Additionally, there should be an audit of all data sources to cross check the current address of any inventory item.

 

This was a system failure---the established system was totally inadequate.

 

Carl

 

 

 

 

[Conder101]

Problem is as Collections Manager he was probably the person in charge of logging the access. No matter what methods you came up with there are still ways to get around them, especially for the top personnel which he apparently was. And of course once an item is taken or switched it is not going to be noticed until someone else requests access to that same item. Take a hundred items from a million plus item inventory and it may be awhile before it is discovered. I'm sure once they did discover something was missing they were probably pretty quickly able to determine who took it, but you still have the problem of re inventorying everything to determine exactly what is missing and then building an airtight legal case against the thief. This takes time.

 

DOES THE CURRENT OWNERS HAVE TO GIVE THE COIN BACK TO THE ANA WITH NO RECOURSE TO WAHT THEY PAID?

Yes they do have to return it. Their only recourse for reimbursement is to go back to whomever they purchased it from and collect from them. If you don't know or can't find the person you bought it from you are either out of luck, or you might try suing the person who originally stole it for reimbursement.