The strange case of John Lennon's missing wristwatch

[frauenfelder]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/17/the-strange-case-of-john-lennons-missing-wristwatch.html

…

[bluehenbear]

Meanwhile, the watch is being kept in a secret location in Geneva.

So it’s not missing, only an escrow account manager knows its exact location.

[bobsyeruncle666]

One of the rare occasions where the Supreme Court might actually render a fair decision. One might think.

Switzerland’s Supreme Court. Couldn’t resist the pic.

[danimagoo]

@frauenfelder

In 2014, someone known as Mr. A claimed to have legally purchased the watch.

I’d like to know the basis of his claim. If Yoko never sold it, then from the chauffeur on down, no one actually had legal title to the watch. You can’t legally purchase something from someone who doesn’t legally own that item. Generally speaking, if B steals something from A, and then sells it to C, who in turn sells it to D, D doesn’t legally own that item, even if D didn’t know it was stolen. Maybe Swiss law is different, though.

[danimagoo]

Wrong Supreme Court. This one is in Switzerland.

[nemonowan]

Many european countries have limitations on this whether it is time from the original robbery or amount of hands that the item passed through.
I suppose they are necessary to stop complaints about millenia-old robberies, which don’t yet exist in the Americas.

[danimagoo]

Yeah, it seems like this one would be recent enough that those limitations wouldn’t kick in. I wonder if knowledge that the item is stolen would also make a difference. I mean, if this watch was advertised to him as having been John Lennon’s watch, a simple Google search would have put him on notice that the watch had been stolen. I have no idea if that makes a difference in Switzerland, but it can here. The difference it would make here is that it would make the purchaser guilty of a crime. But since this was a rare watch, even without the John Lennon provenance, it’s plausible the buyer didn’t know.

[llamaspit]

@danimagoo

Maybe Swiss law is different, though.

A lot of people whose family members tried for years to recover artwork stolen by the Nazis could provide some valuable context here.

[Brainspore]

@frauenfelder

It was reportedly stolen by Yoko’s chauffeur, Koral Karsan, who had full access to her apartment. Karsan tried to blackmail Yoko, threatening to release embarrassing photos and recordings unless she paid him $2 million.

What an asshole. He apparently threatened to kill her and her family members as well.

I don’t know what the “embarrassing photos” entailed, but by that point in her life she’d already endured several decades of unfair public scorn as “the woman who broke up the Beatles” (as if Lennon and the others had no agency of their own). Difficult to imagine that anything Karsan had on her would have been harder to live down than that.

[ficuswhisperer]

@frauenfelder

This sparked an ongoing lawsuit to decide who the rightful owner is: Yoko or Mr. A.

Reading this story makes me so angry. This is not just stolen property, but property known to the parties involved to be stolen. It doesn’t matter if it’s something worth $40 or $40 million, the legal owner should be the person who it was originally stolen from. Just because the owner didn’t originally realize that something was stolen shouldn’t make it any less theirs. I hope that the Lennons ultimately prevail here and get their property back.

Here’s a picture of said watch from TFA for anybody who’s curious:

[1000YearBan]

@frauenfelder

Karsan tried to blackmail Yoko, threatening to release embarrassing photos and recordings unless she paid him $2 million.

Was her response to laugh in his face “Have you never seen nor heard any of my albums?!?”

(Sorry I couldn’t resist. I love Yoko)

[Kilkrazy]

It’s obvious from the engraving that John Lennon was the owner, having been given the watch by Yoko. Presumably it passed back to her on his demise, as part of his estate and personal effects.

The chauffeur could have received it from Yoko as a gift, which seems unlikely though not impossible. If not, then how could he have got it except by stealing it?

All this happened within living memory. (I still remember the day he died.) The chain of provenance must be pretty weak.

[cannibalpeas]

I’m not a watch wearer and most of the high-end watches I see just look hideous to me; too bulky, too chunky, too try-hard “manly”. But this is one I would actually wear. It’s svelte, thin and elegant and the celestial dial is just

@frauenfelder

Today, it’s worth anywhere from $10 million to $40 million.

Ok, maybe I wouldn’t wear it.

[jhbadger]

I mean, the whole numbered banking system that is a major part of the Swiss economy relies on not probing too carefully how the depositors got their money, even if in recent years they’ve made some concessions in that regard.