I have actively tried to avoid posting too many speculative thoughts about all the new revelations and comments over the past week on the First-Century Mark (henceforth, FCM) ordeal, but a couple of questions are lingering in my mind, so I want to throw them out there. Admittedly, I have not kept up well with what people are saying on Twitter/other blogs, so my apologies if someone has already asked these questions. If anyone has, I am unaware of it and am not trying to plagiarise anyone. I'm happy to amend this post to share a link to someone else asking these questions if anyone knows of it.
1. Did Hobby Lobby pay for FCM or not? There's a Purchase Agreement that sure does suggest that they did pay money for it and other items.
If we assume that they did, in fact, pay money for it:
2. Did they get their money back at any point?
The answer to this second question leads to more questions though.
2a. If they did not get their money back, why not?
2b. If they did get their money back, on what grounds, exactly? Was it an easy process? Was it initiated by the seller when the seller first realised that there was a problem? Was it initiated by Hobby Lobby but went smoothly because everyone realised that there was some kind of problem? Did the process drag out? Were lawyers involved? What was the precise reason given for grounds to get the money back, and how easily/difficultly was this reason accepted?
I guess the thing I keep thinking about is that if you were to return a high-priced item and try to get your money back, I imagine you'd probably have to give a good reason for doing so. After all, the Purchase Agreement that Mike Holmes released reads to me like a binding contract. Even if they never actually paid money for the items in the Purchase Agreement, I would imagine that my question 2b above still applies. It seems to me that there must have been a reason given for why the agreement was broken if it was indeed broken—regardless of whether it was broken by being cancelled or by the money being returned (are there other ways to break such an agreement?). I imagine something like that is not broken easily. Then again, I don't know the legal ins and outs of how buying antiquities works.
If I'm right in my speculation that such a Purchase Agreement would not be broken easily, I would be very interested to know the answers to some of those questions I posed above.
1. Did Hobby Lobby pay for FCM or not? There's a Purchase Agreement that sure does suggest that they did pay money for it and other items.
If we assume that they did, in fact, pay money for it:
2. Did they get their money back at any point?
The answer to this second question leads to more questions though.
2a. If they did not get their money back, why not?
2b. If they did get their money back, on what grounds, exactly? Was it an easy process? Was it initiated by the seller when the seller first realised that there was a problem? Was it initiated by Hobby Lobby but went smoothly because everyone realised that there was some kind of problem? Did the process drag out? Were lawyers involved? What was the precise reason given for grounds to get the money back, and how easily/difficultly was this reason accepted?
I guess the thing I keep thinking about is that if you were to return a high-priced item and try to get your money back, I imagine you'd probably have to give a good reason for doing so. After all, the Purchase Agreement that Mike Holmes released reads to me like a binding contract. Even if they never actually paid money for the items in the Purchase Agreement, I would imagine that my question 2b above still applies. It seems to me that there must have been a reason given for why the agreement was broken if it was indeed broken—regardless of whether it was broken by being cancelled or by the money being returned (are there other ways to break such an agreement?). I imagine something like that is not broken easily. Then again, I don't know the legal ins and outs of how buying antiquities works.
If I'm right in my speculation that such a Purchase Agreement would not be broken easily, I would be very interested to know the answers to some of those questions I posed above.