Lapidary of the Interior

THE MATTER OF OB-04

A Complete Procedural Record of the Contested Custodianship of Fragment OB-04

Lapidary of the Interior — Foundational Series — Vol. V Classification: INTERIOR / UNRESTRICTED Status: OPEN. The dispute has not been resolved. This volume will not be marked complete until it is.

PREFATORY NOTE

The Lapidary does not adjudicate.

This is stated in the BLACKBOOK and has governed the Lapidary’s conduct across its research. The Lapidary observes, records, and monitors. It does not make determinations about the significance of what it observes, the correctness of positions holders take, or the resolution of disputes between parties.

OB-04 has required the Lapidary to examine this principle more carefully than it would have preferred.

This volume is a procedural record of the dispute over OB-04’s custodianship. It is presented in chronological order where the chronology is determinable — which it is not always, because the registry’s date records are non-linear, as described in Vol. VI. What follows is the best account the Lapidary can give of a situation it is unable to resolve and unwilling to pretend is resolved.

PART ONE: INITIAL REGISTRATION

OB-04 was registered through contact from a holder — referred to in this document as Holder A — who described a fragment consistent with known OB properties. Holder A provided dimensions, mass measurements, photographs, and a description of one liquefaction event witnessed approximately three months prior to contact.

The Lapidary conducted a physical verification visit. The fragment was present at the location described. Measurements were consistent with the holder’s account. The photographs matched the physical object. The mass — a property the Lapidary considers the most reliable confirmation of OB material, given that the mass discrepancy cannot be replicated by any known means — was confirmed.

OB-04 was registered. CASE-0004. Holder A identified on file. Monitoring commenced.

PART TWO: THE SECOND CONTACT

Approximately eight months after OB-04’s registration, the Lapidary received contact from a second individual — Holder B — who described a fragment consistent with known OB properties.

The description was detailed. The dimensions were close to but not identical to OB-04’s registered dimensions. The mass was close to but not identical to OB-04’s registered mass. The photographs showed a fragment that the Lapidary could not confirm was or was not OB-04.

Holder B described acquisition through purchase, approximately two years prior to contact, from a private sale.

Holder A had described acquisition through inheritance.

The Lapidary asked Holder B for the current location of the fragment. Holder B provided a location. The location was not the location at which the Lapidary had verified OB-04.

PART THREE: THE LAPIDARY’S ATTEMPTS TO RESOLVE THE MATTER

Attempt one: The Lapidary contacted Holder A and described, without naming Holder B, the existence of a second account of a fragment with similar properties. Holder A stated the fragment in their possession had not been sold, was not available for sale, and had been in continuous family possession prior to their inheritance. Holder A provided documentation of the inheritance. The documentation was legitimate.

Attempt two: The Lapidary requested physical verification of Holder B’s fragment. Holder B agreed to verification but required the Lapidary to sign a legal agreement limiting how it could use the verification data. The Lapidary found two clauses of the agreement unacceptable. The Lapidary declined to sign. Holder B declined to proceed without the signed agreement.

Attempt three: The Lapidary proposed that both Holder A and Holder B provide simultaneous remote mass measurements using standardised equipment the Lapidary would supply. Both parties agreed. The measurements arrived. Holder A’s measurement: 41.2 kg. Holder B’s measurement: 38.9 kg. The discrepancy — 2.3 kg — is larger than the measurement error of the supplied equipment should permit.

The Lapidary noted that this result was possible if:

The Lapidary has not been able to determine which of these is the case.

Attempt four: The Lapidary attempted to cross-reference both parties’ accounts with independent sources — legal records, shipping manifests, auction house records — that might establish a chain of custody for OB-04. The records that would resolve the question either do not exist, are not accessible to the Lapidary, or are held by parties who have not responded to enquiries.

PART FOUR: THE CURRENT POSITION

The Lapidary’s current position is as follows, stated plainly because the situation has been complicated enough that plainness seems appropriate:

One of two things is true.

Option A: Holder A and Holder B have the same fragment. One of them acquired it through legitimate means and the other’s claim is in error, fraudulent, or based on a misidentification of their own object. In this case OB-04 is one fragment in one location and the registry contains an error in one of its two claimed custodians.

Option B: Holder A and Holder B have different fragments. Both fragments are OB material. OB-04 has been correctly registered and there is a tenth fragment — not yet registered — held by one of the parties. In this case the Lapidary’s registry is incomplete by one confirmed case.

The Lapidary cannot determine which option is correct.

The Lapidary notes that Option B would mean there are at least ten fragments, not nine. The Lapidary notes this without assigning it significance. The registry records what is confirmed. Ten is not yet confirmed.

The one liquefaction event claimed by Holder A — and not acknowledged by Holder B — remains in the registry. The Lapidary considers Holder A’s account of this event credible. Whether the event occurred in the fragment that is OB-04 or the fragment that may be an unregistered tenth case, the Lapidary cannot determine.

PART FIVE: WHAT THE LAPIDARY IS DOING

The Lapidary has continued correspondence with both parties. Holder B’s responses have become less frequent. The Lapidary is monitoring for the last three months but has received no reply to its most recent three outreach attempts.

The case remains open. The location remains contested. The Lapidary is not closing this file.

ON THE LAPIDARY’S PRINCIPLES

The Lapidary stated at the outset of this volume that it does not adjudicate. This situation has tested that principle.

The Lapidary has not adjudicated. It has attempted to find independent information that would resolve the dispute without adjudication. It has not found that information. The dispute remains open not because the Lapidary has chosen not to resolve it, but because the Lapidary does not have the information required to resolve it without simply choosing which party to believe — which would be adjudication.

The Lapidary has found that some situations cannot be resolved without adjudication, and that the Lapidary’s principle of non-adjudication, which it holds for good reasons, sometimes produces a state of prolonged unresolution that is its own form of result.

The Lapidary is aware that this is uncomfortable. The Lapidary records the discomfort here because the discomfort is part of the record.

The matter of OB-04 is open.

Lapidary of the Interior Office of the Primary Record lapidaryoftheinterior.org Status: OPEN