Post #791265 by Sandbartender on Mon, Nov 19, 2018 11:42 AM

On 2018-11-19 11:31, tikiskip wrote:
I got a question,
If somebody steals a menu from Trader Sam's and then sells it on eBay does Trader Sam's have the right to ask for it to be returned.

Technically, yes. As the ebay buyer would be in possession of stolen goods. Whether they knew it or not is irrelevant. Although if it were bought "on the level" the buyer can usually just
return said stolen item when informed of its status. If bought knowing that an item was stolen they have committed a crime as surely as the thief.

For something small and not terribly valuable, I doubt anyone would bother. Especially for old things like mugs, where a statute of limitation would likely have been LOOOONG past.

But for a more relevant example, just look at the art world re: big ticket items getting returned after decades or more because they were stolen from some museum or collection.

And in this particular case, the Moai was boosted by the British Navy and gifted to the queen. So whatever the end result was of boosting interest in EI tourism, the motive wasn't all that altruistic.