Not Letting Gifts Go to Their Heads : Oxnard: Most City Council members return or donate bronze helmets from Korean businessman.

The Oxnard City Council got helmets for Christmas. Bronze ones. Just like the original from ancient Greece. So did the top city planner.

But most of the officials were unimpressed.

Councilman Tom Holden put his on his TV, but took it off when his wife protested. “It kind of looked like a cross between Darth Vader and Hitler,” he said.

The planning director sent his back to the Oxnard businessman who had given it. And three council members gave theirs to charity when they discovered that the helmets--replicas of one first worn 3,000 years ago at the original Olympic Games--once sold for $3,000.

Such a valuable gift would have to be officially reported unless given away. And, even though Councilman Andres Herrera doubted the helmet was really worth much, he turned it over to a nonprofit Latino arts group. So did Holden and Councilman Bedford Pinkard.

“The point was that it was either worth zero or $3,000, and I couldn’t figure out which one,” Herrera said.

Pinkard liked the helmet. “I thought it was kind of neat. And on the council, we need them sometimes. But it wouldn’t fit.”

The bearer of six helmets at City Hall last Christmas was Sung Ho Park. The Korean businessman had received approval to open a billiards parlor in downtown Oxnard and wished to express his thanks to the city.

“His intention was to say I appreciate you allowing me a new venture,” said the businessman’s friend and translator, Sam Lee. “Everybody is scared about what’s happening downtown, so he said, ‘You gave me a chance, so I’ll give back to you through my investment.’ ”

Only Councilman Michael Plisky, who had placed the pine box containing the helmet under his Christmas tree to open with other presents, held onto the gift.

Finally, about two weeks ago, Plisky’s wife, Mabi, called Lee and asked if she could buy another helmet, only to be stunned by its original selling price, Lee said.

Plisky has now given his helmet to the city’s main library, where officials say it will be placed on display later this month.

“We simply can’t accept gifts of that value, so we decided to donate it to the library,” Plisky said. “Maybe it’s only worth 10 bucks, I don’t know. But it’s got a nice little story with it, and kids and other people might enjoy it.”

In a news release announcing Plisky’s donation to the library, the councilman described the helmet as “a thing of beauty (that) has great historical significance. It is something we want to share with the whole community.”

He said its fair market value is $3,000 and, as a collector’s item, would appreciate up to 20% in a year.

Lee said City Council members need not have worried about the helmet’s value.

About 1,000 originally sold “like hot cakes” for $3,000 each in Korea as a memento at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Lee said. But Park, the manufacturer of the replica helmets, had been able to sell only a couple of the remaining 1,500 in the United States.

“His price was $3,000, but when you have something and you can’t sell it, its value is nothing,” Lee said. Park said he gave another 10 helmets to acquaintances around Oxnard at Christmastime, including his landlord, his real estate broker and an architect.

“I gave to many people here,” Park said.

In distributing the gifts, Park never told council members that they were valuable, Lee said. But brochures in the helmet boxes noted that only 2,500 were produced and that one could be purchased for $3,000.

Mayor Manuel Lopez, who is in Japan on city business, could not be reached for comment. But he apparently returned or donated his helmet, because the gift was not listed on his annual statement of economic interest. Any gift worth $50 must be declared.

Despite the helmets’ mixed reception from Oxnard officials, the patina-on-bronze headgear and the story behind them may catch the attention of library visitors.

The helmets are said to be precise replicas of one discovered in 1875 by an archeological team excavating the Temple of Zeus on the island in southern Greece where the Olympic Games originated at least 3,500 years ago.

The two principal theories about the ancient bronze helmet are that it was used to dedicate the Olympic Games to Zeus, or that it was worn by competitors on horseback, according to Park’s brochure.

In 1936, an Athens newspaper that owned the helmet announced that it would be given to the winner of the marathon at the summer Olympic Games in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany.

But when Korean Son Ki Jung won the event, he refused the helmet because Korea was occupied by Japan and the runner did not want the artifact to fall into the conqueror’s hands.

Fifty years later, the South Koreans, preparing for their own summer Olympics, found the helmet in a German museum and were allowed to take it to Seoul, Lee said. Son Ki Jung, the 1936 Olympic hero, was there for the presentation.

The original helmet is on display in the Korean national museum in Seoul, Lee said. Park’s replicas were fashioned from a mold of it, he said.

Park’s gifts were not only an expression of thanks to Oxnard officials, but a device to get his helmets before the general public and spread the story of Korea, Lee said.

“He thought that if he gave the helmets to the City Council, they would display them at their office and people would ask about them,” Lee said. “He wanted to promote Korea. He’s so proud of Korea.”

Library officials said the helmet display will open soon.