Why do people remove artifacts from wrecks?

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Hostage

Contributor
Messages
219
Reaction score
12
Location
Rochester, NY
# of dives
50 - 99
I have dove over a dozen wrecks so far and I noticed how they seem like empty shells in some cases. I see portholes gone, anchors missing, and other key parts missing on a lot of wrecks. I also see a lot of different artifacts on display at various dive shops, such as the missing artifacts I have stated. I don't mind seeing something in a museum, though I wonder how many of these things are taken by people put on display in their home. While there, the history forgotten and some descendent ends up ebay'ing or scrapping the item. Seeing an old diving helmet is cool at a shop, though I dislike it when I see portholes and other artifacts on display at various shops. I know some things might fall of a ship on a voyage, I just get a little annoyed at people removing parts from wrecks. I would like my descendents to see the wreck in as similar condition as to what I saw it and if we all take a part of the wreck, there would be nothing left. Anyone else feel the same way?

-Hostage
 
Can o worms opening coming up! You'll get a lot of differing opinions on this. Some areas you can't take things off the wrecks. Great Lakes for example. War graves. National historic sites. Others however are fair game. It's called salvage and if not for the people that do bring things up some might never see them. Saltwater wrecks have a finite lifespan. Displaying artifacts in dive shops, private collections, and the like may be the only reason these items do not just disappear into the muck.

As long as no laws are broken what's the harm? Your descendants not being able to see them? One good hurricane and they would not be able to see them either. Ok to see in a museum? What is the difference between a dive shop or someone's mantle and a museum? One thing might be that for every item on display in the museum there may be 100's that are packed away in a box that no one will ever see. Museums are notorious for locking stuff up that they have acquired and no one ever sees it except for a few people who expended no time, effort, money, or risk to acquire it.

I see nothing wrong with taking and preserving items by private individuals where it is allowed. The sea destroys and makes things disappear. Bringing them up stops that for that item.

I don't know how well you know the North Atlantic dive community (NY, NJ, Delaware, MD) but they were the pioneers in salvaging stuff from wrecks.
 
Simple answer, to take a souvenir before it's claimed by the seem. The ocean reduces wrecks to ruble piles in very short order. The wreck you see today won't be the same in a few years. Your future generations will never see the wreck you see today. Why leave something to be lost forever?

A short example from the book Deep Descent. On some of the very first dives on the Doria, prizes were recovered from the ships bridge wing. The next year they hoped to recover more only to find the entire bridge had collapsed into a rubble pile on the bottom. ONE YEAR. Shipwrecks change constantly and it's never for the better.
 
REALLY....that is an elieteist mindset.

so the less financially fortunate that cannot afford scuba are not entitled to see these artifacts also?

the kid that walks into the scuba shop and sees something cool could be inspired to take up scuba

As said the ocean devoured these items. how long does steel last in salt water?
i dive wrecks all the time and i have seen just in the last few years the hurricanes devastated a few wrecks... one was actually picked up and moved a few hundred feet. the entire wreck....
the indra has been neaten to a pulp and the main decks have collapsed and the tower was ripped off...
the papoose is in 120 feet of water and was just beaten up by this last storm and has buckled and had huge holes ripped into the sides...

everything that sinks in the ocean is fair game unless a wartime sinking, or a significant historical ship.
 
I have dove over a dozen wrecks so far and I noticed how they seem like empty shells in some cases.

In cold freshwater, people who steal artifacts and parts of ships are just selfish d****, since the stuff could easily last hundreds of years if nobody stole it.

In saltwater, you could make the argument that taking the items is preserving them, since with few exceptions, anything left in the ocean will eventually turn into a blob holding nothing more than the memory of what was once there.

flots.
 
What if you were to go visit ESCO ship breakers in Brownsville, TX? You can get portholes, binnacles, compasses, running lights, china, anchors, all of the stuff that most folks dig up off the bottom. Except the ship never sank. Is that as horrid of an idea as removing it from a rusting scrap heap at the bottom of the ocean?

Junk is junk. No porthole, anchor, deck prism or tea cup is going to make 2 $hits a hundred years from now whether it came from the Doria or from a scrap heap in Texas.
 
Junk is junk. No porthole, anchor, deck prism or tea cup is going to make 2 $hits a hundred years from now whether it came from the Doria or from a scrap heap in Texas.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. I can buy fossils in any rock shop and 24 hours a day on the internet. The ones that are special to ME are the ones that I hiked for miles and worked with my son to carefully excavate and bring home. To others they may just be rocks, but to the one's who retrieve them they are much, much more. Who cares what anyone who wasn't there with thinks.
 
Ultimately a lot more people will see your salvage on your mantle then leaving it to sink in the mud. Think not? Here’s how it actually works.

You will compile a great collection, usually as a bachelor. Then your bride or girlfriend finally gets fed up and [-]makes[/-] relentlessly influences you to donate it to a museum, school, local dive shop, a friend… or any other place to get that crap out of her nest.

You “might” be able to move some of it to your man cave, but that will just delay the inevitable. It all ends up in the same place when your hairs donate it for a deduction, or sell everything off on E-bay — beginning the cycle anew. Either way, more people see it in the long run when rescued from sinking in the slime.

Trust me, I am a recovering brassoholic. :wink:
 
I've never understood it myself. I liken it to riding your favorite roller coaster and removing a few bolts from the track on the way home as a souvenir. Just doesn't make sense.
 
I've never understood it myself. I liken it to riding your favorite roller coaster and removing a few bolts from the track on the way home as a souvenir. Just doesn't make sense.

HAHAHA! :rofl3::banana:

I want to come visit your dive shop. If I really like it, I'll stuff a few things in my goody bag as souvenirs. :D
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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