The reason that rare books and map are stolen from Libraries. My current view.

For 53 years I have been working with the FBI to put book thieves in prison mostly with Matt Mullen who worked in the Landsdale office.  With one exception virtually every report made by me of a stolen book or map resulted in jail time for the offender - Lynn Glazer (twice), Andy Antippas, William F Williamham,  and Forbes Smiley.  Then there were the matters of the Swedish and Spanish National Libraries where every dealer except me told FBI agents that they had sold the stolen books for cash and had no records.  Then there was Richard Clayborne Hoegland who stole $471,000 from me in 1988.  He was 19 years old and his mother convinced me not to press charges.  This was the dumbest decision I ever made and enraged my friends at the FBI who felt rightly that I had let them down. 

The process is incredibly slow because our system of law truly does not consider a thief guilty until a jury convicts him.  There are countless ways to stall 

FBI agents are trained to ask the same question 5 to 9 times in a slightly different way to get the most information.  From the time I discovered the theft to a jail cell 3 to 7 years passed and takes up 100 to 250 hours per year of my time.   With Willingham it took over 2000 hours of my time but finally, his luck ran out when the judge in the trial realized that his very own great, great grandfather had given the books to the University of Georgia at the conclusion of the Civil War.  He was livid and should have recused himself, but he didnt.  He "threw the book" at him when he discovered that the stolen set of Redoute "Lilies" were sold to a biology professor in Ancaster, Ontario, Kevin Kershaw who refused to return them.  Willingham got 8 to 12 years.  Kershaw made a fortune undercutting me for 10 years. 

All this time spent drove me to think about WHY books and maps are stolen.  

Here is my belief:

When Henry Ford divorced his second wife in 1979 he sold his collection of French furniture at auction and realized less than 10% of what he paid.  He was wildly annoyed about this and told his friends vociferously.  One of those friends was Al Taubman who was deeply moved.  When he bought Sothebys 4 years later, the 100% to 1000% divergence in prices charged by dealers and auction houses were aggressively broadcast by his management team especially Dede Brooks.  The corporate goal was to put dealers out of business and they did a great deal of damage to the trade mercilessly showing the difference in prices. 

This was the beginning of the end for dealers and their vast markups.  Taubman made it au courant for gentlemen to buy at auction which was the biggest change in art dealing in the 20th century.  No other individual had anywhere near the influence of this brilliant businessman who treated himself to a wife that was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, a former Miss Israel. 

And of course this led to the vast increase in stealing books and maps from libraries by a  corps of scoundrels led by Dudley Barnes, John Jenkins, Fred White, Richard Arkway, Cremonini and their employees who became their aggressive disciples.  Librarians had no idea what was happening until many years later when they discovered that their collections had been looted.  These crooks could beat any prices with a cost of zero.

On top of dealers stealing, curators participated in the ransacking.

Forbes Smiley was thought to be the principal thief at Yale until it was later revealed by the assistant map librarian, Margit Kaye that her boss the curator, Fred Musto, was stealing much more than Forbes,  Yale, embarrassed, let the matter drop.  It was an epidemic all through the 80's up to the last few years when librarians finally realized that their collections had to be closed especially to dealers. 

The Arader Gallery team survived by working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year during this period.  We would exhibit at as many as 70 antique shows a year sometime doing 4 shows in one weekend!!!  For every thief I put in prison, 10 more sprung up to undercut me.

The great criminal, Jenkins, was a monster with a genius for PR.  In the American Southwest, he stood in my way on most of my sales to collectors from the oil patch, real estate and banking.   It was a nightmare.

And all because 5 dealers in French furniture in NYC and Paris grossly overcharged Hank the Deuce far, far too much.  That is where the virus started. 

And now a vast new challenge is upon us.  Very quietly the American Association of Museums has just changed its guidelines that it is now permissible for Museums to sell their artwork if their survival is at stake.

Expect a vast increase in "stock" as huge amounts of rare books and maps appear on the market from distressed institutions.

Graham Arader