This 1775 revolutionary-era rifle is an undoing by Thomas Gavin.
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
hide captions
switch captions
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
This 1775 revolutionary-era rifle is an undoing by Thomas Gavin.
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
Thomas Gavin may be one of the most prolific antiquities thieves in American history.
There are no movies or books about him, and no wild police chases or Indiana Jones-like adventures. In fact, until a few years ago, no one even knew who he was.
But Gavin shed tears in the ’60s and ’70s, hitting nearly a dozen museums on the east coast. He mostly stole antique guns and stashed them in his hideout – a messy, nondescript warehouse in rural Pennsylvania.
The scope of Gavin’s crimes was on the radar, undetected until 2018, when he tried to sell a rare revolutionary-era rifle to a local antique dealer.
At first, Kelly Kinzle I don’t know what he’s looking at.
“I looked at it and said, ‘Wow, this is a replica of a famous rifle,'” Kinzle recalls. “I said, ‘This isn’t the original – it has to be a copy.” And he didn’t say anything, didn’t fix me, and I bought it literally with a copy of a famous gun. “
But when Kinzle brought it home, he still had the feeling that bothered him and kept looking at the gun.
“I took it off and when I took it off. That was the period. It was right. I went to a reference book – I bought an old book out of print – and I flipped through it and found a picture. pictures of guns,” he said. “And under the photo, the caption reads: ‘Stolen from the Valley Blacksmith Historical Society in 1970.”
It’s not just an old gun but one of the few surviving rifles built by master gunsmith John Christian Oerter.
The copy that Kinzle thought he bought for $4,000 is actually valued at $175,000.
The 1775 Revolutionary-era rifle was made by Pennsylvania’s master gunmaker, John Christian Oerter.
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
hide captions
switch captions
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
The FBI, of course, is looking for the rifle. And when they asked Gavin how he got it, the long jig was set up. That was in 2019, and now the story has finally made it to the court and a verdict has been reached.
It is not clear how many items the 78-year-old Gavin stole. For too long, a lot of the places he claimed to have been to either no longer exist, or they don’t have a record of the thefts. And most of the statute of limitations on the items he stole has expired.
In court last week, Gavin pleaded guilty once to disposing of a cultural heritage object stolen from a museum. The judge considered Gavin’s age and declining health and, amazingly, sentenced Gavin to a day in prison for decades-old theft.
Special Agents Jake Archer of the FBI Art Crime Squad (left) and William Perthes of the Barnes Foundation inspect the rifle during a repatriation ceremony.
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
hide captions
switch captions
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
Special Agents Jake Archer of the FBI Art Crime Squad (left) and William Perthes of the Barnes Foundation inspect the rifle during a repatriation ceremony.
Courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution
However, Kinzle, who has spent a lot of his own money to help solve this crime, is not upset with Gavin’s light sentence.
“I think he’s trying to do the right thing and get some of these things back,” Kinzle said. “Or at least, you know, nobody can be whole.
“Personally, I wish I never got the call and never had to get involved in this. But you know, I think in the end, we’ll all play better for it.”
And as for rifles? It is now displayed Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, where it was on loan from the Society of the Sons of the Revolution of Pennsylvania.
