november 8, 2000

ICOM Korea's website

I am very pleased to inform you that the ICOM Korea's website is now available on WWW. I found that the ICOM Secretariat announced it on the discussion list last Tuesday. The website's official address is http://www.icom.org/koreaAlternatively it can be also accessed at www.icomkorea.orgby whose domain name I am able to generate e-mail accounts such as webmaster@icomkorea.org.

From: Jonathan Sazonoff saz@kwom.com
Organization: SAZ PRODUCTIONS, INC.
Subject:

Misc. notes: Spiel, Boyce, Mysteries & Auctions

Dear Subscribers,
Several items to clear off the desk. First, Robert Spiel has just published his long awaited book, "Art Theft & Forgery Investigations". Mr. Spiel is a former FBI agent and specialist in art crime. For those interested, a page about the book can be found via the publisher's web-site
http://www.ccthomas.com/catalog/cjps/more/0-398-07039-3.html
Next, Paleontologist William Douglas Boyce has update his Fossil Protection links. It remains the best source of information for those interested in that field.
http://spnhc.geo.ucalgary.ca/documents/fossilprotection.htm
And finally culture to the masses - Friday November 10th Fox television is going to broadcast "Million Dollar Mysteries". They intend to cover the famous Gardner Museum theft among other topics. December 1st, Fox will also bring big-ticket items to your TV screen with "The Ultimate Auction". As I understand it, this is a broadcast auction featuring a dinosaur skeleton, some of the late Princess Diana's jewelry, letters from the Titanic, a Russian spacecraft, and more. http://www.fox.com
Hope you find this of interest,
Jonathan Sazonoff
Saz Productions, Inc.
http://www.saztv.com
Contributing US Ed
Museum Security Network
http://www.museum-security.org

New Auction House Makes Its Move

Pricing Scandal at Christie's and Sotheby's Opens Door for Upstart

By Richard Covington Special to the Herald Tribune
PARIS - While Sotheby's Holdings Inc. and Christie's International PLC, the two major art auction houses, grapple with a costly price-fixing scandal, a lean upstart is set to challenge their dominance in auctions sales of 19th and 20th century art. The new kid on the auction block goes by the name of Alice (International), which stands, rather grandly, for authenticity, legality, integrity, credibility and excellence.
Quirky name aside, the creation of the new auction house is an indication of what can happen when globalization is forced on a rarefied world - in this case, art sales.
Alice is the brainchild of Francis Simon, the former managing director of Sotheby's French affiliate and one of the principal agitators behind the imminent breakup of the nationalistic system protecting French art auctioneers.
The first sale, to be held next Tuesday in New York, will group works by Picasso, Magritte, Miro and Basquiat among a total of 19 paintings and sculptures. The works were on exhibit last month in Zurich and Paris.
more:
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FIN/alice.2.html

Read it and Smirke

Stone me, says Marcus Binney. Lord Foster's Great Court at the British Museum is a triumph
Nothing funnier than to see a neighbour fall off the roof, runs an old Chinese proverb, and it is easy to enjoy the spectacle of the mighty British Museum
wriggling in embarrassment over the use of the wrong stone for the south portico in the newly restored Great Court. Yet now the scaffolding has been removed, it is evident that the critics have simply latched on to one mistake and failed to perceive the greater glory of the whole. Norman Foster's treatment of the Great Court wonderfully ennobles the austere Greek Revival architecture of Sir Robert Smirke.
All the fine judgements made by Foster and his partner Spencer de Grey have been triumphantly vindicated.
more:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,31036,00.html

Analysis: eBay fraud lawsuit raises questions

by Jennifer Couzin
(IDG) -- Operation Bullpen was born in early 1997 when FBI special agent Timothy Fitzsimmons set up a phony Pacific Rim business called Nihon Trading Company. His plan was simple: Use undercover agents wired with tape recorders to purchase fake sports memorabilia from forgers, convincing them that their wares would move quickly out of the country and into Asia.
"We were getting into a lot of the deceased people," says Fitzsimmons, recalling the forged signatures on baseballs, bats and scraps of paper that he and his agents collected. "Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Hollywood people who've passed away. ... The best forgers that we were investigating were using ink from virtually every decade."
more:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/11/07/suing.ebay.idg/index.html

Diamond Heist Thwarted

British Police Foil 'World's Biggest Heist' in Millennium Dome Diamond Raid

L O N D O N, Nov. 7 - It would have been the world's biggest heist; a James Bond movie come alive. A gang of highly organized thieves today mounted an operation to steal $500 million worth of diamonds displayed inside London's landmark Millennium Dome. A dozen diamonds, including the irreplaceable De Beers Millennium Star diamond, would have been the prize. De Beers said the flawless, pear-shaped Millennium Star is arguably the most perfect large diamond in the world and third largest ever discovered. They had planned the raid down to the last detail. Or so they thought. The hole in the plan was that Scotland Yard knew the raid was being planned and switched the diamonds for fakes just hours ahead of the raid.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/dome001107.html

Arson strikes history of Fort Lee

By MITCHEL MADDUX
Staff Writer
An arson fire destroyed two buildings in Fort Lee Historic Park early Tuesday, while touching off a brush fire on the Palisades that burned for nearly 2 1/2 hours.
Authorities were investigating the fire, which gutted a small log cabin designed to resemble barracks that stood on the site during the Revolutionary War. A 10-by-10-foot wooden shed also was destroyed, officials said. No injuries were reported in the blaze, which was fought by 35 firefighters from seven borough companies, said Sgt. Charles Jones of the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police.
"It's a suspicious blaze," Jones said, noting that the cabin ordinarily was kept padlocked and had no electrical wiring that might have sparked.
http://www.bergen.com/bcoast/ftleefir20001101.htm

Panel: Yahoo! can block access to Nazi items

Experts say portal can block French users

from accessing U.S. auction sites.
PARIS (Bloomberg) -Yahoo! has the technical means to prevent French Internet users from accessing its U.S. auction sites that trade Nazi-era items, a panel of experts including Vinton Cerf, the man widely regarded as the ''father'' of the Internet, told a Paris court.
The experts outlined a method they said can block French users' access to the sites in 70% to 80% of cases.
The court will rule on the six-month old case Nov. 20. The Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled in May that Yahoo! must ''take all necessary measures to prevent the sale of Nazi objects on all French territories.'' It appointed the panel in August to help determine whether the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company could technically prevent such access from abroad.
more:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cti771.htm