The Rare Book Heist of the Carnegie Library

When most of us think of a heist, we imagine rare crown jewels or bars of gold being taken in the dead of night or even in broad daylight.

The most successful heists happen thanks to extreme cleverness and careful planning often being the result of an inside job.

In April of 2017, a massive heist was discovered. A heist in which one wonders the possibility of pulling off. Not of crown jewels or bars of gold.

Of rare books worth millions!

The crime didn't happen in a museum or a bank as most would imagine a heist to occur. It happened at a library.

There are those of us who would long to hold a copy of the rarest of books. For even just a glimpse inside its pages. To see rare manuscripts thought lost in history.

The Carnegie Library located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania isn't like your local library where you can just go in any time and check out a book with your library card.

If you want to read a book from the Carnegie Library, you can't just check out a book with your library card and take it home with you for two to three weeks. You can't even step inside the library without an appointment beforehand.

The Carnegie Library holds quite a remarkable collection of books! In this library, you will find rare collections of books published as far back as the mid 1400's. Old maps that existed during the early age of European exploration.

The Carnegie Library goes through extreme measures to guarantee the security of every valuable piece. Every book. Every map. The books are kept securely locked until you request them. A librarian will then bring the books you asked for after you made your appointment.

After that, you must remain in the Oliver Room, the room in which visitors are allowed to access these books. You must leave any personal belongings like jackets and backpacks in one of the lockers outside of the room. This room is under heavy surveillance by security cameras.

The Heist

It was to be like any other day at the Carnegie Library. Appointments were to be made. Those with approved appointments would sit in the Oliver Room and conduct their research under the security cameras.

That was until the library administration realized something horribly wrong. There were valuables missing from the Oliver Room. It wasn't just one book missing or a few. It was a significant collection of 314 rare books worth an estimate of $8 million.

With such extreme security measures, one has to wonder, how such a heist was even possible in the first place!

The Carnegie Library heist was an inside job twenty years in the making and was cleverly planned by two people.

The library's head archivist Gregory Priore and a bookstore owner of rare books - John Schulman.

Whether it was a book, map, or piece of artwork, Priore took that which held the most monetary value. Over a 20 year period, Priore used a razor blade to meticulously remove the pages of books. Even beautiful illustrations were cut out and removed.

Priore then sold the stolen goods to Schulan who then resold them to collectors.

Some of the most impressive valuables taken included:

• The first edition of a book published in 1787 and signed by Thomas Jefferson

• The first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica published in 1687 and written by Isaac Newton

• A 4oo year old Geneva bible.

About twenty years after the heist first took place, both Priore and Schulan were caught and charged with forgery, theft, and criminal conspiracy in 2020 as both pleaded guilty.

What makes this heist especially horrible is that every piece selfishly destroyed in the heist had most likely taken a significant time - a lifetime even by the author or artist to complete. It makes you realize the importance of protecting such rare and precious valuables because once they're destroyed, they're gone forever.

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