While I agree that this email reads like a phishing scam, the facts themselves sound legitimate, especially if the soup tureens are actually in your collection.

One simple way to check the authenticity of the email is to have your local technolgist look at the full headers for the email.  If the servers etc. listed there correspond to the legitimate French servers, and don't actually redirect to or from some other country, there is a good chance that the message is legitimate. Corresponding directly with Ms. Sterzing without replying to the email, might be the best course.

Let us know how it works out.

-------------------------------------------
Guy Hermann, Principal
Museum Insights
860-245-1323
http://www.museuminsights.com

On Jun 5, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Dominique Bouchard wrote:

> The email is absolutely legitimate and should not be taken lightly.
> 
> The email address belongs to a lawyer who has now successfully prosecuted cases on behalf of a family who are seeking to claim their rights to works of art (or their value) which were liquidated after having been stolen by Nazis. There is a very long paper trail of similar cases brought (successfully) by this lawyer. The family is very well informed and have very specific and detailed information about the pieces in question.
> 
> Other museums which have encountered a claim originating from this case were contacted initially by fax and the vast majority of correspondence was carried out by email.
> 
> I wish your museum luck in dealing with this. I (humbly) suggest that you consider strongly your choice to forward any related future correspondence to an email list like Museum-L as the family and/or lawyer in question might not feel that the resulting discussion fell within the bounds of professional discretion, especially given the number of responders who have asserted that they are running a scam and the sensitivity of the issue.
> 
> In the rush to gather whether this email is real it may have been all too easy to forget that the family have been the victim of a very serious crime in which they are among many, many people who lost their lives and livelihoods.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Dominique Bouchard
> 
> -- 
> Dr Dominique Bouchard
> Hunt Museum Curator of Education and Outreach
> 
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