People Who Steal Antique Maps and Books

A recent article in the Financial Times of London delves into the possible motivations of those who steal rare books, antique maps and manuscripts. “What drives people to steal precious books“, by Tim Richardson, examines the exploits of some recent map thieves, such as E. Forbes Smiley and Farhad Hakimzadeh.

The article points out that for libraries,

…such thefts can be extremely difficult to notice. Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, a police officer with 23 years’ experience, has for the past eight years headed the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit.

“Book theft is very hard to quantify because very often pages are cut and it’s not noticed for years,” says Rapley. “Often we come across pages from books [in hauls of recovered property] and we work back from there.”

There is a call for libraries to take particular security measures and for honest library users to be vigilant. The article also touches upon the problem of “insider theft”:

A more recent “trusted insider” case is also one of the most shocking. In February, David Slade, a respected Bristol-based dealer and former president of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association, was jailed for 28 months for stealing 68 books worth £230,000 from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, who had engaged him in 2001 to catalogue part of the family collection at Ascott, Buckinghamshire.

[tags]e. forbes smiley, map theft, antique maps [/tags]