Salt Lake County antiques missing

No one has been keeping an eye on antiques belonging to Salt Lake County, and many of those pieces may now be lost, according to an audit released Wednesday.

Nearly half of 162 antiques turned up missing after county auditors scoured the Hansen Planetarium, the City-County Building and the District Attorney's Office.

Working off a 1996 registry, the auditor's office was only able to find 87 of the three buildings' 162 pieces. The rest, the report says, could "have been lost, stolen or converted to personal use."

The search represents a sizable portion of the county's 227 pieces with a total value of about $42,000. That figure, however, only takes into account the actual value of items like chairs and desks but could be larger if the items are truly antiques and have appreciated over the years.

The majority of the lost pieces were supposed to be in either the City-County Building in Salt Lake — which the county used to occupy — or in the former Metropolitan Hall of Justice that was demolished in 2001.

During those transitions, some pieces were relocated to the District Attorney's Office, but some "were disposed of when the building was torn down due to their obvious dilapidated condition," the report said.

Roughly 73 percent of the 26 antiques registered at the Metropolitan Hall of Justice were not located, and nearly 76 percent of the 62 items from the City-County Building were missing.

Twenty-eight percent of pieces at the Hansen Planetarium were also not found, with chairs topping the list of the missing items.

Jim Wightman, director of the county's audit division, said he believed most of the missing pieces will turn up and have either been moved to county storage or have found their way into different offices. A more exhaustive search could pinpoint many of the unaccounted-for antiques, he said.

"It's the first time anyone's looked at this problem in nine years. There's been no thorough inventory done," he said.

While County Auditor Sean Thomas said the $42,000 value of the pieces is not overly significant, the assets should be tracked regardless.

And the numbers can add up for some of the pricier items. Two rolltop desks purchased in 1960, for example, were not found and had a total value of $5,000. The most expensive item on the county's antique list — an organ worth $4,000 — is supposed to be at the Capitol Theatre but was not included in the auditor's search.