Looted Chinese Gold Ingots From Prince de Conty Returned To France

[MiddenMonster]

There is seriously a lot to unpack in this article, so it is definitely worth a read. But to borrow a line from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, "Forensics be jammin' a brother up." The ship sunk in 1746, and the ingots were recovered in the mid-1970's. They appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 1999, and a photograph shown by the woman who brought the ingots blew the case wide open. It still took a couple of decades after that, but the ingots were recovered in a raid in 2018 in San Francisco. And of course there was the obligatory ownership dispute, with China getting involved and making their claim to them. But for whatever reason, France didn't surrender and ended up with the loot. No pics, but this is an excellent read and loaded with information:

Five Gold Ingots From China, Looted From an 18th Century French Shipwreck, Returned to French Government Via SF

 

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[Deleted member 110535]

There is seriously a lot to unpack in this article, so it is definitely worth a read. But to borrow a line from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, "Forensics be jammin' a brother up." The ship sunk in 1746, and the ingots were recovered in the mid-1970's. They appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 1999, and a photograph shown by the woman who brought the ingots blew the case wide open. It still took a couple of decades after that, but the ingots were recovered in a raid in 2018 in San Francisco. And of course there was the obligatory ownership dispute, with China getting involved and making their claim to them. But for whatever reason, France didn't surrender and ended up with the loot. No pics, but this is an excellent read and loaded with information:

Five Gold Ingots From China, Looted From an 18th Century French Shipwreck, Returned to French Government Via SF

Finders keepers, losers weepers.
If France wanted them that badly they could have bought them, instead someone who worked hard got jacked. Great lesson for the rest of us. Melt that shi* down and accept face value. I don't see the problem as long as you are already getting jacked for their share by the IRS. At least the pokey could have gotten some of that income instead of giving it away trying to gain Frances favor. Where is the benefit to that in a couple million lousy bucks?
Something stinks!

Hopefully I haven't violated any of the rules here by saying that, I stayed away from direct political statements.

 

[MiddenMonster]

Finders keepers, losers weepers.
If France wanted them that badly they could have bought them, instead someone who worked hard got jacked. Great lesson for the rest of us. Melt that shi* down and accept face value. I don't see the problem as long as you are already getting jacked for their share by the IRS. At least the pokey could have gotten some of that income instead of giving it away trying to gain Frances favor. Where is the benefit to that in a couple million lousy bucks?
Something stinks!

Well, they certainly made a rookie mistake by taking the picture and using it as a type of provenance on the Antiques Roadshow. Even in the 1970's the science of forensically examining photographs was pretty sophisticated. For provenance they could just as easily dropped them under water in some sand without any geographical identifiers and taken some show pictures for the appraisal. It was also a mistake to take them on a TV show where they would have been seen by people all over the world. They could have sold them to any number of collectors or, as you said, melt them and sell them for gold value. I don't know what the laws were back in the 1970s, but the wreck was only 10 miles offshore, so that works against them, as well. It's not like they were in international waters. It also cracks me up that China tried to get these back. This was clearly payment by Chinese merchants or the Imperial House to the French for products already delivered to China. Transaction consummated, done and over with. But what is really odd is that Spain didn't put in a claim for these ingots. Don't they own everything related to shipwrecks?