The article can't be bothered to include any pictures of the stolen jewels
edit: I think these are the stolen jewels






The article can't be bothered to include any pictures of the stolen jewels
edit: I think these are the stolen jewels






Last headline I saw about this said 7 minutes. Pretty soon the thieves will be reaching back in time to grab these things.
So you have the jewels. Now what? Do they just go into some rich person's secret collection? It's not like you can fence these things.
On jobs like these, they already have a buyer.
When the French Blue was stolen after the revolution, it was recut and probably became the Hope Diamond.
If they can't find a buyer, they'll melt it down and recut any gems that are too recognizable. Easy money, if you know the right people.
In the melt down and recut scenario, is it "easy money" though? Seems like robbing the most famous museum in the planet would be inviting one of the most well resourced investigations over gems that I presume could have been stolen from somewhere a little more low profile.
I'm not remotely knowledgeable, but it feels like it wouldn't be worth going after the louvre specifically without confidence you have someone willing to acquire the pieces intact rather than having to erase nearly all their "value" in the process.
They think they'll dismantle and melt them and try to fence the stones (stones, especially famous ones are pretty worthless). They should get about 200 k€ for the lot if they're lucky. At least according to art specialists debating on news channels.
If they're sophisticated thieves, they will be sold intact to some overseas billionaire for much more than that. You'd be surprised (or maybe not that surprised) how much stolen art and artefacts winds up in the private collections of rich assholes.
For some reason, this is not considered likely by the investigators. Don't ask me why.
I won’t ask you why but will ask you for a source as I find it surprising too.
Feels like that would be super high risk for relatively low reward. I would have guessed if you wanted some relatively anonymous gems you'd do just as well with much less risk finding a couple of much lower profile jewelry stores or something.
You seem to think criminals have actually reflected upon this. They might actually be idiots.
I suppose I may be overestimating Louvre security. I guess I would assume a criminal might have to be somewhat smart to overcome what I presumed to be higher security than you might find at a typical target for idiot criminals.
Oh yes, there's basically no security. At least nothing to deal with a quick grab like that. The only concern seems to have been terrorism. And even then,it was clearly not very well taken into account.
Curious why you got a downvote, if there's a good reason, I would have found a reply more informative...
Float a line to the Saudi Royal family Jared Kushner, they’d buy them no shame at all
I'd check the owners house, I assume they're insured.
They'll be broken down, metal smelted, gems recut if necessary. They're gone, who cares. It's not like they were the actual crown jewels, just a few baubles.
I never understood stealing high value items. That shit is gonna be so hot it'd take a deep network to fence.
You're assuming they don't have a customer yet.
Just give them to some local children to play with.
As an aside, am I the only one who always thought Alfred was kinda a piece of shit for that story? Like a lot of Batman stuff hasn't aged well, but even when I first watched that movie, going scorched earth for a jewel thief was fucked up.
Some people want to watch the world burn. Alfred actually did set their world on fire and watched it burn.
Melt it down, problem solved
I mean, they don't have that high of a melting point... you'll end up with a lump of worthless alumina, sure, but if you really want to melt them, you can. 🤷♂️
Melt the gold/silver, the stones can be re-shaped. It will lose value but I think it's the only way to fend it.
Things with historical value are worth far more than the cost of their raw materials. These are crown jewels, not copper pipe being sold by meth addicts.
Yeah, I know, but the thing with that is that everyone will know it's stolen, so no one dares to buy it. Because otherwise they will sit on super rare stolen items, which could land them in prison for the rest of their lives. To the only way to fend it is to melt it down, reshape the stones and sell it for its materials for far less than it's original value, or sell it to someone who wanted these specifically and hired you to the job. But again, why would you want to sit on something as hot as this...
Someone should really try to beat that record should they be returned.
Thats where I wear a chastity belt…no ones getting their hands on my crown jewels.
I love how my brain immediately pictured a jewel encrusted royal chastity belt despite nothing in your comment saying anything to suggest that
i bet it was lupin!
This is art. Thank you for taking the time to make this. You're reviving the spirit of the best parts of the Old 'Net. :D
Noo, possibly couldn't, they're the good guys now
I just watched the sequel, it was pretty good. Dreamworks is on some real solid shit lately
Where was security during all this? Was there NO camera coverage on that part of the building? This is The Louvre, not a pawn shop. All the reporters keeps saying this is "the crime of the century" to which I say, "well yeah, but that's only because your awful security made that possible!"
We are in the "telling the public what evidence they have will alert the perps" phase, only wild media speculation until the investigators are done doing their thing.
I look forward to Internet Historian doing one of his stock image gilliamation videos about this.
These trinkets will go to a very rich collector, not through your typical "fence the goods" path. I'd check Mar-a-Lago as a first step.
"Guys, the jewels, go get them."
"I don't know much about rocks, but I know what I like, and that is rocks that sell."
"It's a funny fuckin' world we live in, eh?"
Best thing to do is to smash them and sell them afterwards to different people, no?
No they're worthy because of their history
Oh no, the world is missing some shiny rocks. I demand the planet cease rotating until these rocks are restituted!
1300 diamonds in Eugénie‘s crown? That shoulda been sold and given to the people long time ago. Take a pic and move on.
They were in a museum, they belonged to the people there
Liquidate some old rich people’s assets to benefit the people of France, or keep them in a box to stare at and remember how much wealthier they all were than you? “Belonged to the people” is a very loose description since they have no control over what the Louvre does.
Sales tax on the tickets alone more than makes up for the value of the item itself though. 8.7 million visitors a year results in a shitton of tax money which benefits the people of France.
Totally, but people would still line up to see Mona Lisa. Not saying to get rid of the museum.
Sure, though it could be less people for the same ticket price.
If we look at the extreme case, removing every item from the Louvre but the Mona Lisa would result in significantly less tax income because there's no way millions would spend [insert Louvre ticket price I am too lazy to research]€ for looking at a single painting for 5 minutes.
Museums with more items generally result in more money.
Who said to make the Louvre just the Mona Lisa?
This is your brain on workerism
Enjoy your cake
These are beautiful impressive works of art and craftsmanship and you want to sell them off for like 8 hours of government budget so they can sit in one of those rich guys collections.
You arent just going on about lame ass workerist platitudes about "benefiting the people" its not even a coherent position once you step back even a little.
Diamonds are worthless. Shiny coal. Some interesting industries applications, but you can get much better quality ones for much cheaper, if you're looking for that kind of thing.
Diamonds are worthless is a crazy statement. Tell that to every person who has ever had to buy a diamond engagement ring.
Falling for a well known scam doesn't make the crap you bought any less worthless.
Buy a moissanite, if you want a shiny rock. It's prettier, almost as hard, cheaper than the overpriced cartel shit, and you won't be financing said cartels.
(And if you just want something particularly hard or good at heat transfer, industrial diamonds are quite inexpensive.)
Just because you think something is worthless doesn’t mean you can afford to buy it.
It's fucking carbon.
It's one of the most common gems on Earth.
The only reason jewelry diamonds are expensive (industrial ones are cheap) is the artificial scarcity enforced by the criminal cartels controlling their monopoly.
If it’s up then it’s up. You’re opinion clearly has no effect on the market.
You’re opinion clearly has no effect on the market.
Of course not. De Beers' does. That's the point.
Do try to resell a jewelry diamond, though, and tell me how much profit you made.
The point is that Empress Eugénie’s crown alone could fetch tens of millions for the people of France, whether you like it or not.
The point is that 99% of the value of the crown jewels is in their historical and cultural significance, 99% of the rest of the value is on the design and craftsmanship, 99% of the remaining value is on the metals and jewels excluding the diamonds, and the remaining one millionth is on the diamonds themselves.
And that's probably exaggerating the value of the diamonds.
Focusing on the diamonds is like looking at a famous painting and deciding it must be valuable because the nail it's hanged on is particularly shiny.
When it comes to the value of the crown, the diamonds are less relevant than the dust it's covered on (which at least has historical significance).
That fact they didn’t secretly GPS tag them… that’s on them, so many different ways to track “PEOPLE” let alone objects, so… who fucked up? Should have been years ago…
People legit put AirTags/gps devices on bikes and cars, etc… it could have been these items as well. Dumb!
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