Klarinet Archive - Posting 000356.txt from 2000/11

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Stolen Bass Clarinet
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 15:27:07 -0500

David Hattner wrote,
>I would not want one of my fellow
>professionals to pay good money for an instrument with a clouded history.
>That is a nightmare none of us would want to live through.

Every time I see an old Leblanc Noblet for sale, I wonder if it might be the
one that disappeared from my brother's college dormitory room back in 1970.
Since we hadn't recorded the serial number, it was unrecoverable.

Mark Charette wrote,
>>...Jim claims that the interest in the stolen clarinet has
>>probably driven the price higher: see
>>http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=30208&t=30011

Which parts of the dealer's ever-changing stories do we believe? In some
messages he's sold the instrument and in others he's still got it and plans
to engrave it. He's sadistically jerking David Hattner's chain. Because the
theft happened so recently, to a regular member of the klarinet list, I would
be astonished if anybody in the sneezy.org community dirtied up their karma
by buying this clarinet -- if *anybody* has bought it. Morality aside, I
hope most of us have better common sense. Who needs this kind of trouble?

Nate Zeien wrote,
>>> I think that the manner in which this whole stolen bass
>>>clarinet thing has been handled has been inappropriate,
>>>and even childish at times. [snip] If one confronts another
>>>with methods of insulting, anger, and intimidation, is it so
>>>unexpected to receive a reply of a similar nature. Certainly
>>>one can't expect to be dealt with in a civilized manner if they
>>>do not do so themselves.

Please don't blame the victim by including David Hattner in any charges of
"inappropriate" behavior. "Jim" demanded a profit and threatened to destroy
the bass clarinet *before* David posted anything here or on the BB. It was
"Jim's" outrageous threat on the phone, combined with a slow response by
eBay, the police and the insurance company, that forced David to go public.
I don't see what else he could have done at that point. Unable to dissuade
the seller, he had no recourse but to appeal to the potential buyers.
Anyway, IMHO, even if David's initial approach to "Jim" was undiplomatic, no
amount of rudeness would justify not only refusing to return stolen property
but taking steps to put it out of reach of the original owner.

In decades of flea marketing and yard-saleing, I've known of several cases
where innocent buyers discovered they'd unwittingly purchased stolen goods.
These buyers and dealers voluntarily came forward to try to set things right.
In nearly every case, the rightful owner's first reaction was to go
ballistic, until it became clear that the dealer wanted to help, not exploit.
A dealer as experienced as "Jim" says he is should have expected David to
behave exactly as he did. "Jim's" behavior, in contrast, seems bizarre and
anti-social to me. He has gone (is still going) out of his way to scorn
conventional ethics, and to brag and crow about how vindictive he can be. He
exposes his character through his own words, which speak for themselves.

I'm sorry to see this dealer's behavior muddy the reputation of the used
instrument market in general. IMHO, few dealers want anything to do with
stolen goods. It's true that when someone really wants something, there's a
temptation to stifle one's own suspicions and view questionable transactions
with too much optimism. We assume (sometimes too conveniently) that sellers
know the truth and tell the truth about where things come from, even under
circumstances that should raise doubts. For instance, it seems to me that in
the recent cases where museums and collectors discovered they owned artwork
looted by the Nazis from Jewish families before and during WWII, most of the
buyers hadn't scrutinized the provenance of those paintings and sculptures
carefully. Still, once the truth came out, most of the buyers have made an
honest effort to figure out the right thing to do, and then do it, despite
the complicated chains of ownership over half a century and the enormous sums
of money involved. The few greedy, callous ones stand out in the crowd.

For a dealer at any level of the market to figuratively thumb his nose and
say, "Finders keepers, losers weepers. Nyah, nyah!" is far outside the norm.
In a case where the facts are as clear as they are here, if people weren't
outspokenly outraged, there'd be something seriously wrong with us. The
community must make clear that this behavior is intolerable, not just for the
benefit of "Jim" (who sounds like a lost cause) but for anyone else who might
be temped to try to brazen out a defense for knowingly selling stolen
property. Anyone so tempted probably knows by now that there will be hell to
pay.

Lelia
(returned from holding my nose and voting)

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