Weekend Stubble

Much hubbub in Salt Lake City today over a major book theft. Today's Salt Lake Tribune reports:

A thief entered the LDS Salt Lake City University Institute of Religion between Oct. 24 and Nov. 8 and removed a safe from a secretary's office that is normally locked outside business hours. When the heist was over, an 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon printed in Nauvoo, Ill., and an 1841 edition printed in Liverpool, England, were gone. By the end of last week, University of Utah police were following up on a lead, and evidence collected at the scene was still being processed. So far, however, the stolen books, worth a combined $60,000, have yet to surface - at least not publicly. And it could take years, perhaps even decades before they show up again in the public marketplace, those familiar with rare-book theft say.

Hmm. An entire safe stolen "between October 24th and November 8th"? Isn't that a rather large window of opportunity? -- a veritable French door of opportunity, you might say?

Interestingly, since prominent antiquarian dealer Ken Sanders happens to be in Salt Lake City, the newspaper goes on to reveal that book crimes are apparently way, way up lately:

Sanders, past chairman of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's Security Committee, says book theft and fraud are on the rise across the country and in Utah. When he began his tenure as chairman six years ago, he issued a couple of dozen book-theft and fraud alerts each year. In April, when he stepped down, he was issuing more than 100 alerts a year. Sanders, whose bookstore has also been targeted by thieves, attributed the rise to general public awareness of the value of antiquarian items due to the Internet and TV programs, like "Antiques Roadshow."

Of course, sometimes the Roadshow dealers themselves can't keep from giving in to temptation...