FBI donates confiscated Medal of Honor to museum.

[emccomas]

Lets assume a person has a MoH and wants to donate it to a Museum, would that be legal? This whole SVA is very confusing?

 

Johnny R.

 

Certainly. A legal owner of an MOH can also donate it to someone else. The law says you can't buy or sell an MOH, but giving it to someone is perfectly legal. Many MOHs are legally passed down to heirs.

 

Now, if the legal owner of an MOH "gave" it to a perfect stranger, that would probably get some attention for the authorities, even if it is legal.

 

Direct from the sticky on this subject:

 

18 USC 704, as regulated by 32 CFR 507, prohibits "purchasing, attempting to purchase, soliciting for purchase, mailing, shipping, importing, exporting, producing blank certificates of receipt for, manufacturing, selling, attempting to sell, advertising for sale, trading, bartering, or exchanging for anything of value" the Medal of Honor only.

 

And you are right, the SVA is very confusing, even to the people that wrote it.

[johnnyrocket]

OK, from what I'm gathering from the Forum discussion, it would be legal to give a MoH to a Museum (if it was purely a gift, with no strings attached)..."of course" that's assuming the authorities/museum officials WOULD NOT ASK how the proposed donor had originally gained possession of the medal.

 

Would this be a fair assumption to take on the subject?

 

Johnny R.

[emccomas]

OK, from what I'm gathering from the Forum discussion, it would be legal to give a MoH to a Museum (if it was purely a gift, with no strings attached)..."of course" that's assuming the authorities/museum officials WOULD NOT ASK how the proposed donor had originally gained possession of the medal.

 

Would this be a fair assumption to take on the subject?

 

Johnny R.

 

Yes, I think that is a fair assessment. There have been a few individuals that were in possession of unnamed issue Medals of Honor. The government took the position that these unnamed issue MOHs were stolen government property (the approximately 300 or so back door sales of issue MOHs by Lordship Industries). The government wanted them back, and was eventually satisfied when they were donated to museums (like the Congressional Medal of Honor Society museum).

 

There is a thread somewhere on this site that provides more details about this; I just can't locate it right now.

[Allan H.]

Yes, I think that is a fair assessment. There have been a few individuals that were in possession of unnamed issue Medals of Honor. The government took the position that these unnamed issue MOHs were stolen government property (the approximately 300 or so back door sales of issue MOHs by Lordship Industries). The government wanted them back, and was eventually satisfied when they were donated to museums (like the Congressional Medal of Honor Society museum).

 

There is a thread somewhere on this site that provides more details about this; I just can't locate it right now.

 

I would think that the FBI has gone well past the "300 or so back door sales of issue MOHs by Lordship Industries" in their quest to remove MOH's from the hands of collectors. In fact, the medal that started this whole thread has NOTHING to do with Lordship back door pieces as Lordship didn't make Tiffany Crosses, and they dididn't cast their wares on the medals that they did manufacture.

 

These well-meaning but short-sighted people that have spurred on the witch hunt for MOH's in private hands have caused many historic pieces to migrate out of the USA never to return to American soil as they end up in collections in England, Germany and Japan. I wonder what some of those MOH recipients who earned their medals in action against the Germans or the Japanese would think if they knew that their medals were sitting in a display case in Tokyo or Munich?

 

Finally, as far as I have been able to tell, the Medal of Honor Foundation, which funds the Society is a private corporation that has enjoyed special status here in the USA. Their manipulation of the FBI to get them to pursue ordinary collectors so that they can increase their holdings is shameful.

 

We have watched the courts recently excuse the conduct of some idiots who wanted to pretend that they were military heroes by calling it "their right to free speach," but we allow federal law enforcement to pursue private citizens who have no other agenda than to honor the recipients of the medal by displaying them in positions of honor, to hand over those historic artifacts because a group of people have decided that the collector is unworthy of possessing the item that those people covet. To me, it kind of smells like the Nazis who decided that Jewish people were not worthy of possessing items that those goose-stepping, race haters coveted themselves.

 

Allan

[johnnyrocket]

Well said Allan.

 

Johnny R.

[APO472]

OK, from what I'm gathering from the Forum discussion, it would be legal to give a MoH to a Museum (if it was purely a gift, with no strings attached)..."of course" that's assuming the authorities/museum officials WOULD NOT ASK how the proposed donor had originally gained possession of the medal.

 

Would this be a fair assumption to take on the subject?

 

Johnny R.

 

 

Personally I would put the medal in a baby basket, put it on the museum's porch, ring the doorbell and RUN!

[johnnyrocket]

Google earth would probably see the whole thing and report it to the Government.

 

Johnny R. :twothumbup:

[APO472]

Google earth would probably see the whole thing and report it to the Government.

 

Johnny R. :twothumbup:

Great point Rocket...I never thought about that. Sad thing is you are probably right.

[emccomas]

Based on recent discussions about this topic, I am reasonably sure that if someone donated an MOH to a museum, it woudl most like be "no questions asked" about where you got it, UNLESS, it was a named MOH that had been reported stolen.

 

The CMOHS had seven named medals stolen from their display areas back in 2007, as I recall.

The CMOHS has a list of about 30 named MOHs that have been reported stolen.

[shrapneldude]

I agree with Alan H. on the subject of the federal government essentially forcing citizens to "donate" medals to a private organization. There's something not right about that. Take from one private individual, give to another, and use federal government money to fund the transfer, while harassing the owner of the medal. Add to that the SVA challenges in court that it is unconstitutional, leaving the law to ONLY affect honest, law-abiding citizens and not the phonies the law was meant for.

 

Banning inanimate objects does not work. It never has. How's the drug war going? How do we explain gang-bangers with fully automatic tech-9 submachine guns when there is a ban on unregistered Class-III weapons in America? And, since this law as come into effect, there have still been numerous reports of people claiming MoH, Navy Cross, etc etc. and it's only affected the law-abiding citizenry. If one has a criminal intention to defraud, or murder, or sell drugs what law is going to dissuade them? Conversely, if someone has good intentions of honoring and preserving a piece of history it can be very disheartening when like-minded individuals use the law to target them for no reason simply because it's easier than going after the other criminals. Don't get me wrong -- we NEED laws. We need law enforcement officers, but laws serve more as a means of punishing the criminals than persuading them not to be criminals. When a law makes criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens, it needs to be given a second look.

 

I believe the SVA severely restricts free speech, and sets a scary precedent letting the government dictate what an American citizen can and can't say, but if there must be a law to prevent fake war heroes from taking advantage, why should that law restrict the freedoms originally fought for by the people it's intended to protect, and at the same time, harming the history of real artifacts?

 

Pure garbage. They wouldn't make you give your car to a local church if it failed to meet inspection standards. Why does the FBI dictate who gets confiscated medals? Especially FAKE ones in this case.

[johnnyrocket]

Based on recent discussions about this topic, I am reasonably sure that if someone donated an MOH to a museum, it woudl most like be "no questions asked" about where you got it, UNLESS, it was a named MOH that had been reported stolen.

 

The CMOHS had seven named medals stolen from their display areas back in 2007, as I recall.

The CMOHS has a list of about 30 named MOHs that have been reported stolen.

 

 

It would be interesting to see that list of stolen MoH's that CMOHS had. Is there a link to this information anywhere?

 

Johnny R.

[tom2001]

It would be interesting to see that list of stolen MoH's that CMOHS had. Is there a link to this information anywhere?

 

Johnny R.

 

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archive/...hp/t-41825.html

 

 

http://cv10navalaviator.wordpress.com/2009...onor-to-museum/

[LuftStalg1]

You would think that protecting freedom of speech would be easy to distinguish / accomplish while outlawing false impersonation much like impersonating and officer? :dunno:

[johnnyrocket]

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archive/...hp/t-41825.html

http://cv10navalaviator.wordpress.com/2009...onor-to-museum/

 

 

Thanks much Tom.

 

Johnny R.

[trenchbuff]

The MOH issue begs the question, how much control do we want our government to have over private property and our private lives? Just because someone has an emotional issue, doesn't mean it has to be made into a bad law, and the MOH law is a hot mess of a law!

[LuftStalg1]

I was just putting around on the Net looking for any good new images of the holders of the Tiffany Cross variation and cam across this. The fake Tiffany confiscated by the FBI is now gloriously displayed as Weedon Osborne’s medal in giant format so you can get a real good close up look at it.

 

A good copy for display but get a load of that engraving down to the silver base metal! :yucky:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weedon_Osborne

 

I trimmed away most of the back ground using MS Paint to reduce the file size while maintaining the image size for uploading.

[manayunkman]

Maybe someone should forward this link to the Navy Museum so they can get a clue. The fact they are displaying a fake MOH as a real one is an outrage. The curator might be better off sorting scrap metal in a junk yard. He needs to answer for this gross oversight. That medal is a piece of CRAP !!! How is it that we can spot this thing a mile away and they prize it ? Are they really that dumb or is there something else going on ?

 

M.

[emccomas]

I sent the Navy Museum an email last year (Sep?) when this discussion first came up. I mentioned that there was some question about the authenticity of the Osborne Tiffany Cross, pointing out the casting issues, etc. Never heard a word from them.

[emccomas]

A couple of pictures are worth more than a 1000 words...