No one said it was.
That estimate was just comparing existing models of porcelain and steel toilets to get a rough estimate of possible weight, not strength.
The toilet would have been as structurally rigid as 18k gold.
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The artwork is valued at more than £1million, but the palace appears relaxed about security.
“It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick,” Mr Spencer-Churchill said.
“Firstly, it’s plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”
Bugger
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They finally scored!
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Mr Spencer-Churchill needs to get out a bit more. Too sheltered a life leads to this sort of assumption that everyone else is like him.
The fact it did not occur to him that thieves after a large wodge of gold-funded cash would not give a shit (not sorry 
) about who used it and what they ate - i.e. any germs left on the working and thus largely self-cleaning (and cleaned a few times a day, no doubt, like many public conveniences in stately houses) toilet - speaks volumes about this idiot.
I wonder what his and the toilet’s insurers will say. If I were underwriting the flood risk I’d look askance at a claim for substantial damage from malicious escape of water after the insured effectively issued an open invitation to thieves to have a go. Though there’s probably a higher than average chance this is self-insured - in which case I’d say they deserve it, except that Blenheim is really a national treasure and ought not to be in private hands at all. No public authority would have countenanced such lax security as this upper class twit did.
It is not as though there aren’t more convenient items to nick
There is a security system, just no additional security (apparently) for the khazi.
For conspiracy theory purposes the artist has form for stealing art (“Another Fucking Readymade”) so perhaps this is an artistic statement.
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A lot bothers me about the way this art piece is reported on. Does anyone have original sources on the making of it? Every resource I can find quotes the same half-dozen breathless articles about it being “cast” and “solid” 18k gold, then quoting values ranging from 1-6 million dollars.
Leaving aside that the value of art objects like this is made up, the details of construction don’t add up. Gold is really really heavy. A volume of gold that size would weigh around 3600 pounds. Did the residence of Winston Churchill have steel reinforced concrete floors? Because that mass is on the scale of industrial machine tools. Did the Guggenheim have a bridge crane and a rigging crew in that little bathroom to install it? Because they should have needed it. Did those those thieves sneak in there with a 2 ton engine hoist and a pallet jack? How did they get it down any steps? How did they get it in their truck?
Gold is also a lousy structural material. It wouldn’t hold up to much use at all unless it was alloyed with something else. I get that it’s only 18k and not pure gold, but these details still don’t add up for an object that large.
What would be waaaay easier is to gold plate a regular toilet. My guess, since the artist apparently isn’t talking about how he made it (as far as I can find- please help if you have better intel) is that it is plated and he’s letting everyone believe otherwise.
If so, the joke is really on those thieves.
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- Have thieves steal gold-plated toilet.
- Claim that it was solid gold.
- Profit!
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you have to make sure it’s not made of plastic first 
Ah, only if you view the art as something negative. The nice thing about it, is: with art you can look at it from multiple views.
Like one might look at the toilet as a negative - but it is a nice negative because it is gold. Like America might be a bit of a shit hole, but it’s a nice shit hole.
Another way to look at it is that a toilet provides an extremely important role in civilization. I’d argue it is the most important. If I had to live in a secluded area, but was given ONE modern convenience, it would be a toilet and sewer system. It literally transformed how well people lived in cities and civilization. No more horrible smell. No more rampant diseases. No more polluted drinking water.
So if one were to look at like that, being compared to a toilet is an honor. Or maybe, “You might not like it, but it provides a vital function.”
True, but most would fetch a fraction of their actual value, on the black market, due to being readily recognisable annd traceable artworks. A gold shitter melts nicely and anonymously.
Well, look who was seen in the area at the time of the heist…COINCIDENCE?
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From this article
“At first, when they woke me up this morning with the news,” he said in an email to The New York Times, “I thought it was a prank: Who’s so stupid to steal a toilet? I had forgotten for a second that it was made out of gold.”
He said of the work: “‘America’ was the one percent for the 99 percent, and I hope it still is. I want to be positive and think the robbery is a kind of Robin Hood-inspired action.”
Mr. Cattelan said the theft was not part of a prank, à la Banksy shredding his own art at auction.
“I wish it was a prank,” he said, adding that the story “is deadly serious if even a little bit surreal since the subject of the robbery was a toilet.”
Mr. Cattelan said the piece was made of 103 kilograms of gold, which would make the toilet worth more than $4 million.
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Must have been clean round the bend to steal that, if not a little potty. Obviously flushed with sucess, probably now installed in the cistern chapel.Perhaps it should have been in a water closet.
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Of course, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Columbia, etc should all be happy to be a golden toilet. Or more elegantly (and less precisely) stated: Los Baños de Oro.
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wait it caused water main break… so it was functional? must have been very germy!!
What use is a golden throne if it can’t be used?
someone smarter would have just stolen / chipped some off, gold is not very strong a metal and you can’t put cctv or mics inside even an “art toilet” (sorry woody!)
I don’t know how to react about this matter. I am about to laugh but then I realize that this golden toilet cost $1.25 million.
The cistern chapeL or possibly the Louvre. Perhaps its on its way to Kazakhistan?
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