Definition
A valuable thing is any item of value — whether tangible or intangible — that can be the subject of theft, fraud, extortion, or other property-related offenses. The term operates as a broad catch-all in criminal and property law, encompassing objects, documents, and intangible interests that have monetary or exchange value, without requiring that the item take any particular legal form.
The term appears most often in penal statutes and indictments where the legislature or pleader intends to reach a wider class of property than more specific terms (such as "goods," "money," or "valuable security") would cover. Its breadth is its primary legal function.
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Common Confusion
VALUABLE THING vs. VALUABLE SECURITY
These terms are frequently conflated in older statutes and treatises, but they are not interchangeable. A valuable security is a specific subcategory: a document that itself represents or evidences a legal right, obligation, or claim — such as a promissory note, bill of exchange, deed, or bond. Every valuable security qualifies as a valuable thing, but the reverse is not true. A watch, a quantity of grain, or a piece of jewelry may each be a valuable thing without being a valuable security at all. Bouvier's draws this line explicitly, and researchers working with nineteenth-century criminal statutes must attend to which term the drafters used, since the choice determines the scope of the offense charged.
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Why It Matters in Research
The primary research function of this term is to understand the outer boundary of property-related offenses in historical statutes. When a nineteenth-century larceny, extortion, or fraud provision reaches "any valuable thing," it is deliberately extending beyond the narrower categories — money, goods, valuable securities — that appeared in earlier or more specific enactments. Researchers should treat "valuable thing" as a drafting signal of expansive legislative intent.
Two traps appear regularly in historical sources. First, the term's breadth means it was applied inconsistently across jurisdictions, with courts in different states reaching opposite conclusions about whether a particular item — a promissory note, a ticket, a written promise — qualified. Second, modern statutes have largely replaced "valuable thing" with "property" (often defined comprehensively in the criminal code's definitions section), which can include intangibles, electronic records, and services. A researcher comparing a modern charge with a historical one must verify whether the modern statutory term "property" covers the same ground as the historical "valuable thing," since the answer is not always obvious.
The corpus connection to valuable security is essential: any research path that begins with "valuable thing" in a penal statute will likely require parallel investigation of "valuable security," "goods and chattels," and the general property definitions operative in that jurisdiction at the relevant time.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treatment is concise but analytically precise. The entry defines "valuable thing" entirely through its relationship to "valuable security," establishing a clear hierarchy: the latter is a subset of the former. This comparative framing was the standard approach in nineteenth-century legal lexicography, where terms were often defined relationally rather than by intrinsic content.
What Bouvier's does not supply — and what historical dictionaries generally omit — is any affirmative enumeration of what qualifies as a valuable thing. The term was deliberately left open, and courts filled the gap case by case. Researchers should not expect historical dictionary entries on this term to resolve coverage questions; those answers live in the case law of the relevant jurisdiction.
The reference to 29 Am. & Eng. Encyc. (2nd ed.) at 575 and the New Jersey authority at 35 N.J.L. 452 signal that the distinction between valuable thing and valuable security was a live issue in American courts, not merely a taxonomic nicety.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The encyclopedia entry on Bystander Recovery Rules (Dillon/Thing factors) in the Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia uses "thing" in an unrelated doctrinal context (the California Supreme Court's Thing v. La Chusa framework for bystander NIED claims). That usage is analytically distinct from the property-law term defined here. Researchers should not conflate the two.
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