Why do people remove artifacts from wrecks?

[Wookie]

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.

More like removing an empty Pepsi cup and a sign that says "you must be this tall to ride".

 

[Mike]

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.

All good points, but the one problem with private collections versus museums is that often over time, especially once the original person who salvaged dozens upon dozens of items has passed away, often the history of the items passes with him and they just become another random historical item that no one will ever know where it came from.

The more time passes the more rudimentary and mundane objects can take on significant historical significance. This is easy to see if you look at military historical items, at the end of WWII many things were junked or sold to scrap or sold off to the public, now with the amount of time that has passed those items which were once just troublesome surplus are now coveted, extremely valuable and rare. Same thing happens with insignificant wrecks of today, over time they can also change into extremely significant, once in a private collection and the information of them items history dies with the owner, it's forever lost.

 

[falcon125]

I don't understand the mentality of "if its underwater its amazing" Junk is junk. Man made things do not belong at the bottom of the ocean unless they serve a purpose, like a gutted out hull that provides shelter for marine life.(artificial reef)
If you have an auto accident you don't leave it there, you clean it up. You don't charge admission to see the death site. I think all wrecks should be attempted to be salvaged.

 

[Akimbo]

All good points, but the one problem with private collections versus museums is that often over time, especially once the original person who salvaged dozens upon dozens of items has passed away, often the history of the items passes with him and they just become another random historical item that no one will ever know where it came from...

I agree when the wreck is pre-1700s, but that’s rarely the case. The number of ships that have been built after that period, with the exception of a few “first-offs” like submarines, are plentiful and well documented. Either way, the real choice is between buried under collapsed steel plates (soon followed by mud) for eternity or on land where it can be viewed, studied, and enjoyed.

Somehow a few divers have developed the absurd impression that a wreck left in the ocean will be enjoyed by generations.

 

[rhwestfall]

We have wrecks here in Erie (Greal Lakes) that are now buried to the deck in muck/silt. Yep, its there for everyone to see and enjoy (NOT!)......

Should I have left the 15# "Bass Pro Shops Navy Anchor" I found in the Niagara River yesterday f0r someone else to see? It might be rare some day.....

 

[NAM001]

It sounds like this conversation boils down to "Is the harvesting an act of preservation or one of a nature more rooted in destruction or greed.

 

[Jared0425]

How many people go out and sound time and money looking for virgin shipwrecks? I go out every spring and search 20 sq miles a weekend hoping to find something. More often than not we just find out where the wrecks are not. This misconception that the great lakes are underwater museums is often misunderstood. Zebra mussels, silt, corrosion, storms, and currents affect wrecks as far down as 170ft. The people who complain the most are the ones who do not put in the effort or care for finding virgin wrecks. They rather try and jump us on new sites or try and use fellow diver should share with the world crap. Also another misconception of the lakes is that artifact removal is illegal. It is not. The state has to PROVE ownership of a wreck before they can make a claim. Even wrecks in preserves are not protected as people like and might think. So if you want to see porthole, bells, chadburns, and helms, go out there and run a shipping lane and you will find one.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The other way to look at is all that junk that found it's way to the bottom really doesn't belong there, it's technically trash.
Just like trash on the beach or a hulk that gets grounded on some rocks right at shore and becomes an eyesore, people want it removed because it's trash. What's the difference if it's on the beach, at 30 feet, or 300 feet? It's not natural to the environment, it's man made junk and should be cleaned up.
If on the other hand it was cleaned of all toxic debris and strategically placed at a location to provide an artificial reef by marine scientists and protected from looting, that's different.
But most of the piles of wreckage I see where I dive it wouldn't make a drop of piss in a pool difference whether someone snags a brass porthole or anything else for that matter. The only thing is the wrecks around me belong to the state and they are strictly off limits.

 

[Mike]

I agree when the wreck is pre-1700s, but that’s rarely the case.

The wreck of a ship in 1701 had no historical value to anyone in 1702, 300 years later it doe. A wreck in 2013 has no historical value to anyone in 2014, in 2314 it will.

 

[Aguablanco1]

The wreck of a ship in 1701 had no historical value to anyone in 1702, 300 years later it doe. A wreck in 2013 has no historical value to anyone in 2014, in 2314 it will.

Mike,
I generally agree with your posts, however, not this time. Using your logic there could be no littering, it would just be placing future artifacts. Of course nothing that sank last year would be of historical significance, it only happened last year. History generally takes some time to develop. I would rather see legal collection of artifacts if the alternative is total destruction by time and corrosion.
RichH