[MSN] Dealer who stole rare maps faces jail and £1m fines. Expert cut pages from atlases with razor blade. British Library and US institutions targeted.

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Dealer who stole rare maps faces jail and £1m fines 

· Expert cut pages from atlases with razor blade
· British Library and US institutions targeted 

Duncan Campbell
Saturday June 24, 2006
The Guardian 


The tools of his trade were a sharp razor blade and a brass neck. Now the
antiques expert who stole some of the world's rarest and most ancient maps
from the British Library and many leading American institutions faces 10
years in jail and the wrath of the world of cartographers.
Edward Forbes Smiley III, 50, has pleaded guilty in New Haven, Connecticut,
to stealing 97 ancient maps worth £1.6m. He will be sentenced in September
and will almost certainly go to jail and face fines approaching £1m. The
scale of his thievery is already making waves throughout the institutions
that bought rare maps from him.

Smiley, from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, was well-known in the trade
and a familiar figure on both sides of the Atlantic. Librarians were used to
seeing the scholarly figure in his blazer quietly examining old atlases.
Then, in June last year, Smiley was in Yale University's Beinecke Library
when a member of staff spotted a razor blade on the floor. Asked if it was
his, Smiley behaved in a suspicious fashion. Questioned further by a
detective, he admitted that it was his. In his pocket was a page cut from a
390-year-old atlas.

The FBI were called in. Initially, Smiley denied everything but his rivals
in the trade felt that his arrest explained how he had been able to sell at
seemingly bargain prices. Map dealers who knew him were amazed to discover
what he had done.

"He struck one as a very affable and pleasant character," said Jonathan
Potter, a London antique map dealer. "He looked like a well-to-do merchant
banker and he had that 'III' behind his name. It was quite a surprise to
discover what he had been up to."

Smiley's website, complete with a 1688 map of "Pensilvania", still exudes
that self-confidence. "My practice has always been to work closely with
collectors and develop a long-term relationship," reads his statement, which
boasts of 25 years in the trade. "We buy worldwide very aggressively."

Now honest traders and institutions are waiting to see the effect of his
crimes. "It has made libraries in the States and here very much more wary of
their security," said Mr Potter.

"It has come as a real blow to the map trade," said Paul Clark, of Carson
Clark Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland's leading map specialists. "He was
well-known and you would never have been suspicious of him."

Mr Clark said Smiley had helped many institutions acquire rare maps and his
conviction would inevitably lead them to start re-examining their
acquisitions. "They are all starting to look at what they've got and how
they got it. It will have a ripple effect throughout the institutions and
the map trade."

Mr Clark said that while the map trade was in robust health many dealers
were closing their stores and going online. This made it easier for less
scrupulous dealers to enter the market as it was difficult to check up on
them.

A spokeswoman for the British Library said four maps out of their collection
of 4m had been stolen. One is a map of the world, dated 1520, by Peter
Apian. Another world map, dated 1578, and described as "a true discourse of
the late voyages of Martin Frobisher", an untitled map of New England and
Canada from Sir William Alexander's book, An Encouragement to Colonies, from
1624, and the world map, Typus Cosmographicus Universalis by Sebastian
Munster, dated 1532, were also stolen.

"We do regular checks, there is closed circuit television and security is
constantly under review," said the spokeswoman. She added that the library
was an important research resource and had to be made available to the
public.

Gary Haley, newsletter editor for the Society of Cartographers, said there
was great international interest in ancient maps. "There is a fascination
with 16th century maps," he added.

Smiley concentrated most of his energies in the United States. Among the
institutions he targeted were the New York and Boston public libraries, the
Harvard University Library and the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Smiley's attorney, Richard A Reeve, said his client hoped to recompense
those he had defrauded. He is to sell his homes in Martha's Vineyard and
Maine to raise the money. "It is in effect a decision by Mr Smiley, having
done very bad acts against people and institutions who he liked, respected
and worked with for a number of years, to make them whole for the damage he
has done," Mr Reeve told the Associated Press.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/