Abraham Lincoln's hand has reportedly been gone missing, but curators are hopeful that the thief will eventually return it.

According to New York Times, all of the curators at the Kankakee County Museum in Illinois were saddened and perplexed after they discovered that the 150 year old plaster art piece went missing. They are not certain when actually it disappeared but they believed that it went missing sometime before Dec 11 last year.

The sculpture of the 16th president's hand was proudly displayed at the museum for years and it was made by George Grey Bernard, an artist who admired Lincoln very much and channeled his admiration to his art.

Authorities are now hopeful that they will somehow get some information that could lead to the retrieval of the missing hand after they posted it to their Facebook page, which they described that the size of it has a roughly "8-10 pound ham." They also included photographs, so it would be easy for the social media users to identify the missing art piece.

Chief Larry Regnier of the Kankakee police said that their department is currently investigating the case but admitted this is going to be a tough case, given the fact that there's no suspects nor witnesses.

The museum's director, Connie Licon, said that the missing sculpture has been on display since 1991 and this is the first art heists she encountered in more than 20 years.

A custodian first noticed that there's a vacant spot on the shelf and alerted right away Ms. Licon. "We were devastated. It just brought us all to the floor," Ms Licon recalled. "We're a small museum, and we just don't acquire pieces like this," she added.   

It is believed that that the sculpted hand is worth $5,000 but curators and police described it as "invaluable" artwork.

Since the incident, Ms Licon said they already kept other Barnard's art into a safe place as they feared that it might also disappear.

Ms Licon also called the thief's attention and urged the culprit to return the missing Lincon's hand right away. "Just return it in a quiet way. Just put it in a bag and leave it somewhere," she said.