# Famous Missing Objects **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536 "2010-10-27T15:51:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/101 "2010-11-01T07:02:14Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Lawrence lost the first draft, which was evidently very different, of _The Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ in a cab. No, left it at a train station. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/102 "2010-11-01T16:17:12Z")
A [little island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa) in the Indian Ocean disappeared in 1883. ---
**Author:** ![Iggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Iggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggins)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/103 "2010-11-01T17:17:28Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > A [little island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa) in the Indian Ocean disappeared in 1883. Was that East or West of Java? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/104 "2010-11-01T17:37:08Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > The Gun that killed Hutler Hut one or Hut two? > [@AutumnLeaves](#): > > I’ve always wondered about that - you can’t hang it in your foyer, and presumably you can’t insure it, you can’t let any non-criminal acquaintances you have see it… what can you do with it, other than sell it on the black market? But I read a little while ago that these expensive stolen paintings are sometimes used as collateral in drug deals, which I thought was fascinating, if true. I’d think it would be enough for some just to have it to view by themselves whenever they want to. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/105 "2010-11-01T18:05:25Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Well, there never was really an “original film” of the TV footage, because it was broadcast live from a TV camera and transmitted to Earth. It wasn’t recorded on board the _Eagle_ as far as I know. > > What we have now is footage that was recorded by pointing a camera at the TV screen showing the live broadcast. There was a direct recording of the broadcast made at the same time, which would presumably be higher quality, but it was in an obsolete format. I’m not sure that makes sense - kinetoscopes (which is the term for what you describe) were gone by the late sixties, and recording live broadcasts on videotape was pretty standard. Of course I have no idea how they actually recorded the moon landing; perhaps they didn’t have a means of connecting the equipment together as they might not have had the same level of standard connectors that they did even a decade later. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/106 "2010-11-01T18:09:26Z")
> [@Stormcrow](#): > > I’m not sure that makes sense - kinetoscopes (which is the term for what you describe) were gone by the late sixties, and recording live broadcasts on videotape was pretty standard. Of course I have no idea how they actually recorded the moon landing; perhaps they didn’t have a means of connecting the equipment together as they might not have had the same level of standard connectors that they did even a decade later. It had to do with the format or something the Apollo cameras used a whole new format to film and the signal was sent to the Aussies because they were in Line of sight and it was night here there it had to be converted and such to TV standards. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/107 "2010-11-01T19:58:01Z")
The score of _Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old_. This was the first theatrical collaboration of William S. Gilbert and Arthur S. Sullivan, and was little more than a short farce used as an “after-piece” to follow another, entirely unrelated play. It premiered in December of 1871 and only ran for 63 performances. The libretto was published at the time and has survived mostly intact. The score, however, was withheld by Sullivan, who planned to re-use the music as the occasion saw fit. As it happened, one such opportunity arose in 1879. By this time, Gilbert and Sullivan’s partnership had produced two moderately successful light operas (_Trial By Jury_ and _The Sorcerer_) and one certified smash hit (_H.M.S. Pinafore_). Though tremendously popular on the American side of The Pond, however, _Pinafore_ yielded very little profit to its creators. The copyright laws of the time did little or nothing to prevent theater companies in the U.S. from staging their own productions of the operetta that neither credited nor reimbursed Gilbert, Sullivan and their impresario, Richard D’Oyly Carte. So when the “official” version of _H.M.S. Pinafore_ finally arrived in New York a full year after its London debut, the show had lost its novelty and failed to attract much of an audience. The expedition to “The Colonies”, however, was anything but a failure, as the trio had an ace up their collective sleeves. Gilbert and Sullivan had already been hard at work on their follow-up piece, and kicked into overdrive (so to speak) to have it ready ahead of schedule. As 1879 came to a close, the plot to foil the copyright pirates went into action, and on December 30, the curtain rose on a single, unadvertised performance of _The Pirates of Penzance_ at Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, England. The very next day, the opera received a full-scale, red-carpet premiere at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New York. With these near-simultaneous openings, Gilbert, Sullivan, and D’Oyly Carte had secured their production rights in the both the U.S. and the U.K., paving the way for many future successful collaborations. So where does the score of _Thespis_ come into it? Well, as it turns out, Sullivan found when he arrived in New York that he had left his nearly-completed score for Act I of _Pirates_ back in England. He set about reconstructing it, but found himself unable to recall all of the music he had written. Fortunately, he _did_ have a copy of the _Thespis_ score, and simply grafted one of its songs neatly into an appropriate spot. The lyrics required only the merest alteration, and “Climbing over rocky mountain” has taken its place as one of the best known numbers from _The Pirates of Penzance_, despite the fact that the Penzance seashore does not, in fact, _have_ any mountains. Neither Gilbert nor Sullivan made any effort to mount a revival production of _Thespis_ – it’s likely they looked upon the early collaboration as something of an embarrassment. Unproduced, unpublished and neglected, the majority of the score simply passed out of history. Many musicologists have sought to prove one song or another from the various succeeding operas to be a cannibalized leftover from _Thespis_, but to little effect. Along the same lines, multiple “reconstructions” have been attempted (to varying degrees of acclaim) some taking the cannibalization approach, and others employing original compositions in Sullivan’s distinctive style. All remains mere academic speculations, however, until the golden day when the lost score of Gilbert & Sullivan’s earliest collaboration is unearthed at last. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/108 "2010-11-01T20:02:16Z")
Here’s the [Apollo footage story (from 2006):](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5578853) > [@](#): > > Here’s how it worked: **The lunar camera was sending images to three tracking stations:** Goldstone in California, and Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes in Australia. At these stations, the original footage could be displayed on a monitor. > > **To convert the originals, engineers essentially took a commercial television camera and aimed it at the monitor.** The resulting image is what was sent to Houston, and on to the world. > > “And any time you just point a camera at a screen, that’s obviously not the best way to get the best picture,” says Richard Nafzger, a TV specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He worked with Apollo’s lunar TV program, and says \*\*that conversion was the best they could do at the time. > \*\* > “We’re talking 1969. In today’s digital world, it’s pretty much a relic. But that’s what it was,” he says. > > **The original lunar footage did get recorded — onto 14-inch spools of magnetic tape, along with telemetry data.** And by 1970, the tapes had made their way to a giant government facility known as the National Records Center in Suitland, Md. Soon after that, records show that NASA brought the tapes to Goddard for “permanent retention.” And then… > [@](#): > > Fast forward to April 2002. Someone who’d worked at one of the Australian tracking stations **finds a tape in his garage.** He thinks it’s a copy he made of the original, high-quality footage. It goes to Building 25 at Goddard Space Flight Center, which houses the Data Evaluation Lab. This lab is full of giant blue cabinets that hold 40-year-old playback machines. > > “This is equipment that would process any tapes we find of the original television,” says Nafzger, who adds that\*\* this lab is the only place left that can play NASA tapes from the Apollo era.\*\* > > It turned out, the Australian tape wasn’t the moonwalk; it was a simulation from 1967. But it made Nafzger and others keen to find the originals. > > Unfortunately, no one has been able to. **Nothing suggests that the tapes were moved from Goddard or destroyed. Yet there’s also no record of where exactly they’re supposed to be.** > > **The Data Evaluation Lab will be shut down in October [2006]. But Nafzger plans to save a few of the machines, in case the tapes turn up.** He and Stan Lebar are talking with the retirees, sorting through old documents and hoping someone will call them with a tip. > > “One of the reasons we’re fighting so hard is that we’re fighting against the clock,” says Lebar. > > **The tapes will degrade over time,** and all the people who worked on Apollo aren’t getting any younger either. Lebar is 81 years old. However, [note this](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-video/moon-landings-video/8047294/Digitally-remastered-footage-of-Apollo-11-moon-landing-shown-for-first-time.html) (recent story): > [@](#): > > Scientist John Sarkissian, an astronomer from the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, **said the California station that received the original broadcast from the moon did not have the right settings, resulting in a blurry, barely visible Armstrong.** That may contradict the previous article’s explanation, or it may be a major oversimplification of the other explanation. > [@](#): > > Leading a research team, Dr Sarkissian has tracked down other surviving original recordings to recreate an enhanced version from the best tapes of the first broadcast. > > “During the course of our search for those tapes, we discovered lots of really good recordings of the broadcast which people actually saw in their homes and we have taken the best of those recordings and compiled them into a single two and a half hour video,” Dr Sarkissian said. > > They found one copy at NASA’s Sydney switching center, a 16mm kinescope copy in the US National Archives, a well preserved 2" tape at CBS archives and a Super 8mm home movie taken by a scientist at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra. So this recent Remaster looks to be just a remaster of what was broadcast over commercial TV–i.e., not using the original, higher-quality footage. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/109 "2010-11-01T23:09:10Z")
Shakespeare’s _Cardenio_ and _Love’s Labour Won_. (Unless they’ve been mentioned earlier, in which case feel free to make fun of me). ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/110 "2010-11-02T01:02:16Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > So this recent Remaster looks to be just a remaster of what was broadcast over commercial TV–i.e., not using the original, higher-quality footage. They decided not to show anyone the high-quality footage. The problem was that you could clearly see, in the depths of space behind the Apollo landing module: **\<== SOUNDSTAGE 2 === === CAFETERIA ==\>** Why, yes, I am kidding. I hope. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/111 "2010-11-02T01:54:49Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Paris Hilton’s dignity. I think that was thrown away rather than lost. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/112 "2010-11-02T02:42:52Z")
While legends of the Confederate Treasury’s gold are overblowm (there was never that much gold as compared to the U.S. treasury and most of it was spent long before the war was over) there is credible evidence that some gold bars and thousands of pounds of silver evacuated from Richmond in the final days of the war is buried, probably somewhere around Danville, Virginia. There have been many searches but nothing that fruitful so far. Some experts believe that it was retrieved by those who knew where it lay and some even believe it may have come into the possession of John Tyler’s New York widow, but most believe it was left wherever it was buried. Charles Guiteau was known to be a nutcase long before he got it into his head to shoot James Garfield which he did to unify the Republican party, to get revenge for Garfield’s failure to make Guiteau ambassador to France in spite of poor Charlie having written numerous letters asking him nicely, to promote the sales of Guiteau’s (almost completely plagiarized) book on religion, and a general “why the hell not?” thinking. He did have some method to his madness though, and he wanted to make sure the gun he used would look good in a museum. Unfortunately the one with the ivory handles that he liked was more than his budget and his brother (who was long used to Guiteau’s nutty requests and begging for money and so probably thought little to nothing of it when he rattled off something about going to shoot the president) wouldn’t loan him the extra $1.00 he asked for, so he had to go with the [.442 Webley pistol](http://www.gunstar.co.uk/images/Gun-Images/Webley-Webley-and-Scott-Webley-British-Bulldog-442--A5652.jpg)he could afford. Ironically the gun whose posterity he spent so much time in choosing is now missing. It disappeared from archive shelves many years ago. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/113 "2010-11-02T06:40:35Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The second, which was marred at the end of the film by Sydney Greenstreet, was given to William Conrad by studio chief Jack L. Warner. It was auctioned off in December 1994, nine months after Conrad’s death, for $398,500 to Ronald Winston of Harry Winston, Inc. At that time, it was the highest price paid for a film prop. Thanks, DD. Every time I saw that scene, I was wondering where that prop wound up – didn’t dare think it was destroyed. I wonder what prompted J L to give it to William Conrad. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/114 "2010-11-02T07:59:42Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#): > > The Lost Chord Found by Jimmy Durante! In an other musical loss, we may never find the [Mothership](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103996.html). I blame Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/115 "2010-11-02T09:07:25Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > A Greek Orthodox monk showed me a part of it in what appeared to be the Greek Orthodox monk coffee break room at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. > > Feel free to take this as seriously as you like. There’s enough fragments of the Holy Cross around to make a set of three… maybe some are from St Dimas and the other guy who got crucified at the same time. And the Cathedral of Valencia has the Holy Grail, or at least claims to. In its current form, it’s the kind of cup you’d use for Communion wine, but the metal-and-jewels setting/stem are a medieval addition to the original set of dish (now the foot) and bowl (now the bowl of the cup). The composition and style are consistent with a set of “good dishes” in 1st Century Palestine. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/116 "2010-11-02T09:14:51Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > There’s enough fragments of the Holy Cross around to make a set of three… maybe some are from St Dimas and the other guy who got crucified at the same time. There’s enough mentions of this same point in this thread to make up two or three threads on the same subject 😉 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/117 "2010-11-02T09:37:34Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Hut one or Hut two? > > I’d think it would be enough for some just to have it to view by themselves whenever they want to. Actually, I would go and buy a known copy of some picture if I had the stolen one, and destroy secretly the replica, and let the real one be known as the replica. There are frequently copies of famous paintings for sale. Most people wouldnt know a real Rembrandt or Van Gogh if it bit them on the nose. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/118 "2010-11-02T13:16:35Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > There are frequently copies of famous paintings for sale. Most people wouldnt know a real Rembrandt or Van Gogh if it bit them on the nose. If it bit me on the nose, it’s probably not a Rembrandt. It might, however, be a Van Gogh. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/119 "2010-11-02T13:17:10Z")
The dodo. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536/120 "2010-11-02T13:54:03Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I wonder what prompted J L to give it to William Conrad. Nothing to add to the Falcon point, but I’ll just throw in this irrelevant tidbit: NBC newsman Chet Huntley’s widow later married William Conrad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-missing-objects/558536.md?page=7)