Stolen irreplaceable books found under floor of Romanian house
Nobody else considered these two sentences, pretty much one right after the other, quite at odd with each other?> These books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural heritage> The works were being stored in a warehouse ahead of being transported to a specialist book auction in Las Vegas, in the USSo, they were of great cultural/historical importance, yet they were about to get shipped of to the USA to be auctioned. In Las Vegas, of all places.If that was to be an open auction, where essentially anyone could bid, I fail so see how the end result is all that different from these thieves selling them on a black market.Sure, with an open auction there is at least a track record, of where these works end ended up. But access to these works would just as well be on the whims of private owners. To me it sounds like works of such cultural/historical value ending up in private hands either way, is the real crime here.Maybe fully legal(ized) in one case, but I think that says rather a lot about the system as a whole.