Metal Thieves Pilfer Cemetary Cannon For Scap

The scurrilous brand of night-prowling metal thieves known for stripping copper cable out of commercial refrigerators and selling it to black-market recyclers for scrap may have claimed a historic cannon this week.

We obviously have a love of old things and we find this sort of thing particularly reprehensible, but it seems a crew of meth tweakers - or perhaps something more than that - spent some time prying a 1,500-pound Dahlgren gun off its mounts at a Vallejo, CA cemetery and made off with it.

The Civil War-era Naval Dahlgren cannon similar to the one we have pictured was discovered missing from a battery of others in the Sunrise Memorial Cemetery this week. Cemetery operator Buck Kamphausen says the surviving examples have since been removed and stored in safe location.

We have heard of cases back east where thieves, either stealing for scrap metal content of the guns or for well-heeled buyers who like to have 12-pound Napoleons protecting their yards, have backed trucks up to "town square cannons" and made off with them.

This theft is particularly disturbing because it took some spectacular engineering to make off with their prize.

"They took an A-frame to it to take it out of the ground," Kamphausen told a local reporter. "They dug around it enough to loosen it from the ground." This is the second cannon theft Kamphausen knows of in Vallejo in recent years, he said. One was stolen about 18 months ago from another local cemetery, he said.

Sunrise's cannon memorial is believed to have been erected in 1906 in its Spanish-American War section.

"Say, Buddy, How Much Ya Want For That Mahmoud Mokhtar Garden Sculpture?"

A bronze sculpture of a woman carrying a water urn had rested in a Cleveland, Ohio man's garden for years. It attracted some attention, with at least one dealer offering him $3,000 for it.

The homeowner is glad he said no, apparently, as the bronze by Egyptian artist Mahmoud Mokhtar went on to sell at auction for $118,000 - not bad considering he'd inherited the artwork when he bought his house. No one knows for sure how long it has been there, at least since 1931 - when it was poured.

Ashes Of Last Known Titanic Survivor Scattered At Southampton Docks

End of an era when manners and upbringing counted for something: the ashes of the last Titanic survivor have been scattered at the English port where the ship began its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912.

Millvina Dean, who was 9 weeks old when her parents took her aboard the ship, died May 31 at age 97.

Her ashes were scattered on Saturday by her partner, Bruno Nordmanis, on the water at Southampton Docks in southern England.

About 150 people, including members of the British Titanic Society and friends of Dean, gathered for the ceremony. David Hill, of the British Titanic Society, called her a "lovely lady, and anyone who met her would say exactly the same."

Belgian Farmers Get Udderly Out Of Control During Milk Price Protest In Brussels

Antiqueswest has covered more than a few full-blown riots in its day, and we know that demonstrators can get "creative" when it comes to finding something to fling at a policeman.

We've seen rocks, steel pellets, molotov cocktails and chunks of concrete hurled at riot police during these things, but we're hearing of a new tactic out there these days, something more insidious even than the bags of dog stuff anarchists hurled at coppers - and anyone else they didn't like - during protests over Operation Desert Storm.

But this, wow, this is something really terrifying... the officer on the receiving end is undoubtedly undergoing counseling as we speak.

Antique Hoaxes: Somewhere, "Jay Slaven" Is Laughing Like The Dickens

There have been a number of great antique hoaxes through history, pranksters who know a certain piece will outlive them and that a story well told could send the unwitting on a merry chase long after the prankster is gone.

Chalk it up to the human need to reach out and tickle someone from beyond the grave, and antiques can be the perfect conveyance.

Take Patty Henken of Illinois. Patty thought her ship had come in when she pried off the seat of an old chair she was working on and a typewritten note fluttered alluringly to the ground.

The note, signed by a "Chauncey Wolcott," instructed the finder of the note to a hidden hoard of gold coins - stashed at a residence long ago and waiting for the person sharp enough to find it.

Patty did some quick mental calculations on the price of gold today, found a backhoe operator and rented some ground penetrating radar and went to the location, a vacant lot. She began to dig, and dig.

But an old friend of a deceased newspaper classified ad employee raised the alarm, identifying Chauncey as a fellow employee and a man without a pot to p... bury gold coins in. Patty knew she'd been had when the author of her note was further identified as John "Jay" Slaven - a local prankster known for his practical jokes.

It seemed Jay liked to leave typewritten notes in odd places around town, and Patty was not his only victim. As she calculated her out of pocket expenses from her "treasure hunt" it was revealed that the location where her pot of gold was meant to reside was actually the site of Slaven's home. He died in 1976.