Chicago Tribune | Were treasured maps looted?
Check out this guy’s name: E. Forbes Smiley III. He’s a well-known dealer in rare maps – with a name like that, what else could he be? He lives in Martha’s Vineyard (of course). He was wearing a blazer when arrested (no doubt with a monogram or family crest embroidered just over the breast pocket). In another pocket of that blazer was a rare map that he had evidently just cut out of an old atlas at a Yale University library – a sharp-eyed librarian noticed an X-Acto knife blade on the floor near him and alerted security.
The Newberry is checking their collection now. So are other libraries that Forbes has visited in the last couple of years.
Every now and then, there’s a big case where old maps or illustrations or engravings are cut out of antique or rare books and end up on the rare documents market. This one probably made it “above the fold” media-radarwise because of Smiley’s status in his rarefied world.
Makes you wonder when you enter a shop of beautiful old documents and illustrations just how many of them came from the X-Acto colletion.
