Same church, different pew: Scott Carroll, religious collectors and the old Jiri Frel playbook

Screen Capture: 2015 - Scott Carroll Lecture

One time curator Jiri Frel, who helped build the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection, was pressured to resign in 1984 when people looked closely into his eyebrow-raising acquisition practices. 

While Frel's transgressions were many, one of the most damning was a tax manipulation scheme through which antiquities dealers sold ancient art to wealthy collectors who in turn agreed to donate the objects to the J. Paul Getty Museum.  Through Frel and associate arranged appraisals which greatly inflated the value of the antiquity, donors were compensated for their philanthropy with  hefty tax write-offs.

Fast forward thirty years later to 2015 and listen in at 25:01 minutes into this Scott Carroll video viewable on Vimeo. 

Hearts of Purpose Ep 32: Dr Scott Carroll (3 of 3) 

from Hearts Of Purpose Everyday on Vimeo

His talk is concluded with a few words from Dr. Marshall Foster, founder of the World History Institute.

Foster talked with those in attendance about purchasing historic artifacts and how doing so could be helpful to nonprofits.   He then introduces Todd Hillard, who is somewhere out of range of the video and explains that they have brochures for “Ancient Asset Investments,” Hillard's brokerage firm.  According to Hillard's bio the purpose of AAI is "to bring new life to rare artifacts by placing them with “guardians” who will care for them and share them with the world again in order to catalyze a global movement of artifact-drive academia."

Foster explains that donors can purchase "beautiful treasures," like the one being touched by the bare-handed audience in California and when the assessment of its worth comes in, the object's appraisal would be for a much higher value.  He elaborates further explaining that with this appraisal the individual would qualify for a tax write-off for their donation which usually will end up being "at least three times as much" as their original investment.   A second voice, off screen arbitrarily, without any object under consideration echoes the same statement saying "we can guarantee at least three times as much"(for the appraisal). 

For what its worth, their tactics seem to work.  See this previous post for more details on how collectors readily buy up ancient material in the name of practicing one's religion and tax breaks.