Museum Recovers 2 of Stolen Gold Artifacts at Pawnshop

Two gold artifacts stolen from a National Geographic Society museum were recovered from a local pawnshop Saturday, one day after they were taken and just hours after a $20,000 reward was offered for their return.

Marc Epstein, an employee at Sam’s Pawn Shop, said it was “really amazing” when a man entered the shop Saturday afternoon and asked to sell a 3-by-4-inch sculpture of a vulture for $100.

Police had just left the shop, Epstein said, after interviewing him about an incident Friday night in which the same man pawned a similar figure for $100.

Epstein said he stalled the customer and called police, who took the man into custody as he strolled from the pawnshop.

The two king vultures were among three pre-Columbian gold artifacts stolen from the society’s Explorers Hall museum Friday afternoon. The society offered a $20,000 reward Saturday morning for recovery of the three objects and alerted pawnshops.

Until he received notice of the reward and pictures of the stolen pieces, Epstein had no idea the figure he accepted Friday was valuable. “It just looked like an old kind of pendant.”

Epstein said he has not seen the third object, described as a frog with a snake in its mouth.

Police did not immediately identify the man detained or say if charges would be filed.

“This is the first time anything like this has happened in the museum in the 31 years it has been open to the public at this location,” said Nancy Beers, a director of Explorers Hall.

Beers said she could not estimate the worth of the objects, which were discovered in western Panama in 1948 and 1949.

At the time of their discovery, the objects were described as dating from about 1400. Archeologist Matthew Stirling wrote in a memo that they were found in tombs covered with volcanic ash.

The case holding the artifacts was embedded in an eight-foot-high cast of an Olmec civilization head and protected by Plexiglas. The Plexiglas was jimmied open, Beers said.