$5M Moon Rock Stolen From Malta Museum

$5M Moon Rock Stolen From Malta Museum

$5M Moon Rock Stolen From Malta Museum

POSTED: 10:49 am EDT May 21, 2004

VALLETTA, Malta -- A tiny moon rock believed to be worth about $5
million was stolen from a museum in Malta, 30 years after President
Richard Nixon donated it to the Mediterranean island nation.

The theft from the Museum of Natural History in Mdina was discovered
Tuesday during a routine check, officials said. A protective cover of
plastic had been forced open to take the rock, which was the size of a
raisin.

The rock was picked up in a lunar valley named Taurus-Littrow during
the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the last of the Apollo moon-landing
missions. It was one of many moon samples given to nations of the
world by the United States.

The exact value of the rock wasn't known but a similarly sized moon
rock in Honduras, from the same Apollo mission, is worth about $5
million. That rock was stolen sometime between 1990 and 1994 and was
recovered in 1998 after a sting operation.

A Maltese flag displayed next to the rock -- which the U.S. astronauts
had taken up with them -- was not taken.

"The problem the thieves have is what to do with it," Joseph Richard
Gutheinz, a retired NASA agent who helped recover the Honduras rock,
wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "They can try to sell it
to private collectors or if they're sufficiently dumb, at an auction
house."

There are no surveillance cameras and no custodians at the Museum of
Natural History because of insufficient funding. The only attendant is
the ticket-seller.

http://www.local6.com/news/3331356/detail.html

On or about 21 May 2004 15:58:08 -0700, Rusty B
made the sensational claim that:
VALLETTA, Malta -- A tiny moon rock believed to be worth about $5
million was stolen from a museum in Malta, 30 years after President
Richard Nixon donated it to the Mediterranean island nation.

Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?
--
This is a siggy | To E-mail, do note | Just because something
It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | is possible, doesn't
No person, none, care | and it will reach me | mean it can happen

"LooseChanj" wrote in message
. ..
On or about 21 May 2004 15:58:08 -0700, Rusty B
made the sensational claim that:
VALLETTA, Malta -- A tiny moon rock believed to be worth about $5
million was stolen from a museum in Malta, 30 years after President
Richard Nixon donated it to the Mediterranean island nation.

Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?

Probably what it's insured for. Yes, it's probably pretty arbitrary.


--
This is a siggy | To E-mail, do note | Just because
something
It's properly formatted | who you mean to reply-to | is possible, doesn't
No person, none, care | and it will reach me | mean it can happen

"LooseChanj" wrote in message
. ..
On or about 21 May 2004 15:58:08 -0700, Rusty B
made the sensational claim that:
VALLETTA, Malta -- A tiny moon rock believed to be worth about $5
million was stolen from a museum in Malta, 30 years after President
Richard Nixon donated it to the Mediterranean island nation.

Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?

Cost of Apollo program devided by the mass of the rock?


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

How would a thief prove to a prospective buyer that the rock he has is a
genuine moon rock? Maybe this rock will be mentioned in spam email.

On Sat, 22 May 2004 04:51:20 GMT, "Mike Rhino"
wrote:

How would a thief prove to a prospective buyer that the rock he has is a
genuine moon rock? Maybe this rock will be mentioned in spam email.


What do thieves do with famous stolen paintings? Sometimes a painting
ends up in some millionaires private art collection and reappears
years later, after the collectors death.

Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth each paid $ 20-million dollars for a
ride into space. Is it possible some other millionaire space buff
would like a moon rock for his personal collection?

- Rusty Barton

LooseChanj wrote in message news:
Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?

$5 million was the asking price by a Miami businessman whose Honduran
moon rock was allegedly smuggled into the U.S. and was subsequently
confiscated when he tried to sell it to undercover agents:

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-062902a.html

--
Robert Pearlman, Editor
collectSPACE - The Source for Space History & Artifacts
http://www.collectspace.com/

LooseChanj wrote:

On or about 21 May 2004 15:58:08 -0700, Rusty B
made the sensational claim that:


VALLETTA, Malta -- A tiny moon rock believed to be worth about $5
million was stolen from a museum in Malta, 30 years after President
Richard Nixon donated it to the Mediterranean island nation.



Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?


By God sir...I would have thought you would have known...the moon rock
was set inside of a jewel-encrusted solid gold model of the Eagle Lunar
Lander...yes....no mere plastic stand was used for the display of
the.....Maltese Moon Rock!
Now if I can just pry it from the clutches of the man who took it...a
former employee of mine named Joel Cairo...

Casper Gutman

Rusty B wrote:
$5M Moon Rock Stolen From Malta Museum

$5M Moon Rock Stolen From Malta Museum


Stand ready for the sequel "The Maltese Moonrock", featuring a CGI
Humphrey Bogart reviving his famous role as Sam Spade, hunting down what
seems to be a worthless moonrock turning out to be some precious jewel
after scratiching off all that dirt.

Harald

On 21 May 2004 23:44:55 -0700, (Robert
Pearlman) wrote:

LooseChanj wrote in message news:
Where in the world did they get the "$5 million" figure from?

$5 million was the asking price by a Miami businessman whose Honduran
moon rock was allegedly smuggled into the U.S. and was subsequently
confiscated when he tried to sell it to undercover agents:

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-062902a.html

....Yes, but what was *your* cut going to be in this? :-) :-) :-) :-)

OM

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