Posted on 09/14/2019 6:40:46 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Thieves have stolen a solid gold toilet worth up to £1 million ($1.25 million) from the birthplace of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.
The toilet, the work of Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, had been installed only two days earlier at Blenheim Palace, west of London, after previously being shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Police said the toilet was taken early Saturday by thieves who used at least two vehicles. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
The seat alone weighs 80 pounds, which is the only bit of info I was able to get.
Is it as good as a Ferguson? (Al Bundy)
It’s not “ART” in MY mind. And, yes, we should be disturbed...as many of us are.
I looked up some numbers and here is an off the cuff calculation:
A standard ceramic toilet weighs around 20 kg.
Ceramics used for toilets have a density around 4 g/cm^3.
Gold has a density around 20 g/cm^3.
Substitution and solving for weight yields a weight of around 100 kg (220 pounds) for the gold toilet.
I can’t believe that they would create this thing and then use regular paper for it from a multi roll dispenser you’d most likely find in a public restroom. Was the paper infused with a precious metal or silk?
rwood
Looking at the pictures, it’s not solid gold, it is gold plated. Usual press exaggeration.
Is it me or do British crooks go for complex high payout robberies you could make a movie about?
How can you tell from the pictures?
The seat alone is 80 lbs; it’d take an equally-dense material to plate the gold on to make it that heavy.
I visited Blenheim as part of a full-day tour. In the morning, we went to a few towns in the Cotswolds, and then ended our day at Blenheim. It’s a beautiful place, and wished we’d had more time to explore the extensive grounds.
So they caught the guy and got the toilet back?
Wow pretty cool. So it’s very possible for two people to lift it although it wouldn’t be easy.
I remember. Classic bit!
Well, it was just a rough estimate. I think I read elsewhere that it was 18 kt gold, not pure 24 kt, so the weight would go down some percentage. Also, we don’t know if the “artist” replicated the true dimensions (wall thickness, etc.) of a standard toilet.
Of course, we could do a backward calculation of the weight from the stated value of the object, but I’m not going to do that here, since we have no idea what the “added value” due to the “art” aspect might be.
But, in the end, something at or above 150 pounds might be a good guesstimate...
Easy enough for two men to carry.
:)
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