"Art theft is due for a market-share shift"

From Reuters' BreakingViews, October 24:

Nearly a week after they stole perhaps $100 million of royal jewelry from Paris’s Louvre museum, the thieves are still at large. What’s unusual about their spectacular heist isn’t just the prestigious location, the in-broad-daylight execution, or the incredible monetary value. It’s that the perpetrators took something they could sell for a change.

 

After using a crane to climb through a second-floor window before cutting into displays and threatening staff, the criminals managed to escape by scooter within eight minutes. The temptation is to assume operations like this are sophisticated, in the mold of silver-screen capers like "Ocean's Twelve", "The Thomas Crown Affair", or "How to Steal a Million". After all, media, police and hapless museums have an incentive to play along in order to attract public attention, deflect blame if they to fail to crack the case, and earn praise if they succeed.

While thieves’ taste may be exquisite, the methods aren’t. Researchers find that most use brute force and physical intimidation of guards for access. While half used deception, including inspired examples – a Brazilian robbery during carnival and Norwegian heists during an Olympic ceremony – burglars mostly just wore balaclavas.

The choice of location isn’t unusual either. France is the most common site for museum theft in the world, with Italy second, according to Interpol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation data. These countries are ground zero for the world’s best-known art.

Oddly, jewelry isn’t a popular choice of target. Nearly six times as many paintings are nabbed as gold or gems. 

This represents a colossal market failure....

....MUCH MORE 

I'm not sure if the analysis includes the Dresden theft of a half-decade ago.

December 2020 - And In Other Gigantic Theft News....

Although what the authorities said at the time was that the value of the jewels was inestimable, the press immediately glommed onto a billion whatevers, dollars, euros, pounds.*

*****

*Seriously, how do you put a price on stuff like a diamond encrusted sword hilt :

Or a few years before that one: 

December 19, 2019
SCMP: "Leads on Dresden jewel heist suggest Arab clan involvement" 

First up, the South China Morning Post, December 13:

Investigators seeking links to theft of 100kg (220lb) gold coin – the Big Maple Leaf – from Berlin museum in 2017

The “Big Maple Leaf” gold coin in the Bode Museum in Berlin in December 2010. It was stolen in March 2017. 

Photo: dpa via AP

With a deeper dive in 2023:

"The Big Coin Heist"

In contrast to the falling-down-pants guys with their pockets stuffed with $100,000 in stolen dimes, here's some big money.

From Hazlitt Magazine, March 1, 2023:

It was a piece of currency so large it seemed unimaginable anyone would try to steal it. But that was part of the appeal....