During set-up day for an antique jewelry and watch show at the Metropolitan Pavilion last month in New York City, a man was caught on footage taking a box of antique jewelry, placing it inside a trash barrel and then calmly pushing it down 18th Street.
Inside of the trash barrel was a box filled with antique jewelry with more than a half a million dollars.
“It does happen in a blink of an eye and when you least expect it,” said Julia Rover, an antique jeweler specialist, and owner of the box of jewelry she spent her life collecting. “All of these pieces are unique wearable pieces of art.”
Rover was setting up her booth at the exhibition when a stranger snuck up, past witnesses, and took the box of jewelry.
The average age of the pieces stolen is 150 years old. Some of the pieces are almost 300 years old. Stolen pieces include intricate bracelets, rings and necklaces.
The NYPD Major Case Squad is working with the New York State police to find the jewelry thieves -- three men and one woman. The crew is also linked to another heist last month at the Javits Center.
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With some of these pieces, Rover said, you can’t put a price tag on them.
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“It really would be quite a tragedy if some of these items were destroyed,” Rover said.
