The unfortunate "flip side" of this coin is the fact that such promotion about monetary (as opposed to historical) value convinces owners that the most mundane and trivial of artifacts are worth extravagant amounts of money, that they are sitting on the proverbial "gold mine," and that any offers concerning donation or reasonable offers are attempts to "rip them off".

I'm sure a great many of us can cite several examples of such mindsets, including a few "projects" currently in limbo as a result.

Except, as one old friend, who was a live steam modeler pointed out, we aren't really "owners", but custodians of relics that are also "art". Sure, your property is yours to do with as you please, but if I owned a DaVinci painting and decided to burn it to stay warm, wouldn't someone have the responsibility to step in and stop the desecration?

I guess I'm merely "stirring the pot" with this, and I do respect Mr. Campbell's claim to his locomotive. I've dealt with and read many instances of the "I don't want it, but I own it, so you can't have it" irrationality and immaturity.

An if 643 should make it to preservation and indoor display, then so be it. My first choice would be to see it dragging freight up Horseshoe Curve. So much for rationality. I'll settle for any preservation.

Richard, you would have ZERO right to stop someone from torching the DaVinchi painting. The difference there and, say what the Germans did with art at the end of WW2 is that in your scenario, I've bought the painting. You might not like me breaking out the lighter, but I have the right to do anything I want with it, period.
That's the great thing about a free society, you can be as much of a moron as you wanna be if it's legal...
I know someone who does auctions for big antique collections. He says he only deals with real collectors and not people he calls, "random people with a few things." Anyone's who ever seen a true high-end collector knows the difference.
Anyway, he says this mindset among people who really don't have a lot of truly good stuff floored him so often he no longer deals with them. He said his favorite was someone with a stack of "Gone with the Wind" 'collector' plates who wanted a ten grand reserve on each. He looked online and found they weren't even selling well for five bucks each. When he showed it to that family, they physically attacked him as they'd gone stone cold nuts at the revelation. He had to call the cops and at the court hearing, they apologized, saying they'd all be convinced that they were priceless and had intended on putting all their kids through college on the sale. This had happened several times, so now he won't touch anything from 'normal' people. I can't blame him.
I buy and sell military collectibles every now and then with sales tables at shows. It never fails someone will come up like the one guy last fall with a beat up, ragged German phrase book from WW2. He wanted $500 for the thing! I told him it was worth maybe five bucks in the condition he had it, but only then if someone wanted it really badly. He accused me of trying to cheat him and I said, "Hey, I don't want to buy it at any price, I would even decline you giving it to me." That threw him back. When he tried the same approach to other guys with sales tables and got far harsher responses, I think only then he got the point.

Lee, I appreciate what you're stating, but I disagree -respectfully. Your Jeep is one thing, but a unique, sole surviving, representation of architecture, machinery, or art, should be valued on a different plane.

Just another opinion, held closely. Let's not hi-jack the thread.

Just stating the fact, that the owner of an item can indeed do anything they want to it, including destroying it, just as long as they do own it and they don't break any laws in the process of burning it up.
You don't gotta like it, but it is legal, just like when METRA cut up Dick Jensen's locomotive back in the 80s. Heartbreaking as we all found that, and shady as it might have been to how it got there, it was legal when they broke out the torches.
It's a fact, plain and simple. Opinions are irrelevant.

This is one of those grey areas where private property ownership and a society's cultural heritage collide. Yes the owner has every legal right to destroy it, but the society also has a moral right to prevent that from happening. If I were to snatch that painting out of your hand before you could torch it, I would do so knowing that I have broken the law. But there are times when breaking the law is the right thing to do.

If you are an owner of a steam locomotive and you think that you deserve to own it without any outside interest in it, then you are sadly mistaken. A steam locomotive is not a Jeep. It is of that special class of object that transcends the ordinary production item. It starts getting into that cultural heritage category.

Just because our system of laws has not yet recognized that there is more than one class of owned objects doesn't mean that the concept does not exist. Historic preservationists deal with this issue constantly. This is why some objects receive historic landmark designation, it is a very crude way of society staking a claim on an object that has "stakeholders" who are not the object's legal owners.

Well said, Rick. Well said.

"the owner has every legal right to destroy it, but the society also has a moral right to prevent that from happening."

"Just because our system of laws has not yet recognized that there is more than one class of owned objects doesn't mean that the concept does not exist."

My estimate is that 98% of the people don't give a rat's posterior about the old hunks of metal we so treasure.

They do know when somebody is trying to get their mitts on somebody else's stash, without offer, acceptance and consideration.

Apply this to something you don't particularly think is special or unique, but that you might want to scrap for cash and the deficiency of the argument becomes obvious.

"Concepts" don't mean squat. This is, or was a nation of laws. If I had a problematic piece of equipment and I read this, I might just scrap it on YouTube to remind the self appointed Pharisees about the reality of private property.

There's nothing "grey" about it-if you don't own it, you don't get any say in the disposition. A judge would laugh at you, if your pleading ever even made the docket.

The presumed elevation of an object of historical/cultural/artistic/etc. importance and significance, and thus the presumed imposition of a communal responsibility to care for, protect, and preserve said object upon the owner(s), bears with it a concurrent obligation upon society to properly compensate the owner(s) for the loss of use, rights, funds, value, etc. incurred by said presumptions.

Translation for the less-literate: You wanna declare that he has "no right" to destroy/scrap/demolish something he rightfully owns? Then PAY him for it, just like we have to do with "eminent domain" declarations!

Thank you, ADM IV, I hope that you don't mind me calling you that, for pointing out the "flip side" of that issue. I wanted to highlight that, as well, but decided to avoid and overly lengthy post. I'm sure that all of us who collect outside of our volunteer roles and day jobs have run into this at some point, and I blame those same shows for that sometimes equally irritating phenomenon, as well.

I think it might be in best interest if the discussion moves into a new thread or continues as an extension of an old one.

I think this is a very interesting set of points, conversations, and debates, but it is starting to loose touch with the original post (even if somewhat related).

I think we all here value the engines existence, even the owner, just like the Roanoke scrapper who didnt scrap the few engines there. Knowing the Jensen issue I doubt it will happen.

The fact that he's held on to this engine in the hopes of selling it for an exorbitant price, to me, indicates that he has no desire to scrap it. If he did, then I could imagine he would have done so long ago, when he didn't get the offers he wanted then.

One major mistake is the fantasy that something must be worth as much as has been invested in it. This is not an indicator of real market value, since the original investor probably was not making rational choices. Most big engines are hard to sell compared to smaller ones that are more useful for average museum and tourist lines, and easier to transport, so they may not sell for much more except per pound.

dave

Does anybody know what he's actually asking?