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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jim Dale, post: 7974497, member: 100459&quot;]I have seen and read over and over again, how a hoard of coins, gold, silver, any other thing of value is stripped from the hands of the finder with little or no recognition and especially, no reward of any kind.&nbsp; Small items such as this hoard will begiven to a Museum and a few of the coins maybe or not be displayed with a little card next to it to indicate what it is (to the best of their knowledge).&nbsp; The rest of the hoard is put into a box with an indication on a loosely attached card saying the same thing as the card with the coins that are displayed.&nbsp; A curator of the museum keeps a record of everything that is on display as well as the items in storage.&nbsp; The items in storage will very seldom, if ever, be displayed, or even noted on the card with the displayed item.&nbsp; Supposedly, all items at the museum are to be given an identifying alphanumeric reference number and spot inventories are also supposed to be made to keep employees and/or visitors of the museum honest and accountable.</p><p>As a realist, I doubt that Museums rarely follow a procedure as I referenced.&nbsp; They will tell the country&#039;s &quot;Secretary&quot; (for lack of a better title) the result of their inventory.&nbsp; If there are any discrepancies, the country&#039;s &quot;FBI&quot; (or whatever their countries internal law enforcement is called) will be assigned to investigate the discrepancies.</p><p>There was once an incident in the Smithsonian, where an inventory was taken and compared to the original inventory and confirmed that many items had been removed from the Museum.&nbsp; During their inventory and investigation, they decided to speak to all current, retired or terminated employees.&nbsp; One of the former employees was a &quot;custodian&quot; in an area that had a large number of missing items.&nbsp; The FBI decided to make a surprised visit so not to give the former custodian time to remove any items that he may have stolen.&nbsp; </p><p>Sure enough, when they surprised him (with a legal search warrant), he had displayed many of the items that had been stolen.</p><p>When he was asked why he stole the items, he answered that the items had been sitting in storage for many years and sometimes as much as 100+ years and that he felt that at least one person would enjoy looking at them.&nbsp; Many items were recovered, but they found that several of the Museum&#039;s employees also removed stored items.&nbsp; Some were kept, and many of them were sold.</p><p>I don&#039;t remember the details, but there were several employees, mostly custodians and housekeeping employees that were also found guilty of misappropriation of valuable items and collections.&nbsp; Many items recovered were coins.&nbsp; The first retired employee mentioned was given a suspended sentence because he helped to recover everything he brought home.&nbsp; Those employees and former employees that cooperated with law enforcement, were given suspended sentences, or light sentences.&nbsp; Those that stole and sold the items, were given a year or less, but all that were still working, were terminated.&nbsp; The purchasers of the items were given stiff sentences.</p><p>After this fiasco, the Smithsonion spent over a million dollars for the installation of a security system, and an annual review for $100,000 each year.&nbsp; All employees were given lie detector tests.&nbsp; Many of them were terminated.&nbsp; The Director was held culpable and was also terminated.</p><p>Great story, isn&#039;t it.&nbsp; Don&#039;t look it up.&nbsp; I write fiction.&nbsp; This was a part of one that I wrote, but was rejected by three publishers.&nbsp; I hope you enjoyed the story.&nbsp; Only part of it was true.&nbsp; The custodian that took things home is true.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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