Books stolen from Calgary shop 0

[mec3437]

$50K in rare Fantastic Four comic books stolen from Calgary shop

Long story short, 3 FF books stolen from Alpha Comics owner outside of shop.  One person arrested, the other still on the loose, and the books still missing.  Books are:

• Fantastic Four #1 with a CGC number of 2074628001 and grade of 6.5.
• Fantastic Four #2 with a CGC number of 2041541001 and grade of 5.5.
• Fantastic Four #13 with a CGC number of 204154003 and grade of 4.5.

Just providing a heads up.

[ADAMANTIUM]

Hopefully the one caught will want a deal and flip on the other 2

If years watching crime shows pay off finally...

Hope they get them back!

[James J Johnson]

1 hour ago, mec3437 said:

$50K in rare Fantastic Four comic books stolen from Calgary shop

Long story short, 3 FF books stolen from Alpha Comics owner outside of shop.  One person arrested, the other still on the loose, and the books still missing.  Books are:

• Fantastic Four #1 with a CGC number of 2074628001 and grade of 6.5.
• Fantastic Four #2 with a CGC number of 2041541001 and grade of 5.5.
• Fantastic Four #13 with a CGC number of 204154003 and grade of 4.5.

Just providing a heads up.

Any chance that there were scans or detailed pictures of these taken prior to their theft that can be posted here?

[thehumantorch]

Ugh, that's not far from me.  Will watch for them.

[mec3437]

Best pics I could find from the store's FB page.  

 

[kimik]

That is sad to hear. I hope they can find the books. 

[pemart1966]

I'm sure that it's been thought of already but, check the store's surveillance tapes.  These guy's appear to know what and who they were looking for and there may be a chance that they were scouting out the store before hand to get the "lay of the land"...

Nice looking FF 1 btw and white pages to boot.

Edited March 25, 2020 by pemart1966

[James J Johnson]

35 minutes ago, mec3437 said:

Best pics I could find from the store's FB page.  

 

That is helpful. The FF 1 scan is a good enough looks to be able to positively ID the book, slabbed or not, and there's enough to see, if not the flaws as much as I'd like to, the production mechanics of the book (centering, cut, etc. to ID those too. I'm on the net a lot now so I'll keep a lookout for these 3.

[JollyComics]

One person is caught. I am sure they can extract the information from him. Otherwise, they can find his residence or follow all leads to arrest the second person. Hopefully they will recover missing books.

[thehumantorch]

1 hour ago, pemart1966 said:

I'm sure that it's been thought of already but, check the store's surveillance tapes.  These guy's appear to know what and who they were looking for and there may be a chance that they were scouting out the store before hand to get the "lay of the land"...

Nice looking FF 1 btw and white pages to boot.

They probably knew that the owner removed big books at end of day.  I don't believe this was a random act.

[pemart1966]

14 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

They probably knew that the owner removed big books at end of day.  I don't believe this was a random act.

That's what I'm saying too.  Article says that the owner was robbed at 8:00 am - not at the end of the day.  These guys must have been casing the place.  

I don't know what their hours are but doubtful that the store was open at 8:00 am.  Now they may have been randomly casing the place when they stumbled upon the owner carrying the briefcase and decided to try their luck.

[aardvark88]

2 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

That's what I'm saying too.  Article says that the owner was robbed at 8:00 am - not at the end of the day.  These guys must have been casing the place.  

I don't know what their hours are but doubtful that the store was open at 8:00 am.  Now they may have been randomly casing the place when they stumbled upon the owner carrying the briefcase and decided to try their luck.

Just hope the shop owner was not carrying a box that says in big red letters CGC case. Will let forumites know if they FF's get cracked out and wind up in the Vancouver, BC area although LCS's are mostly closed /shorter hours unless you are a prepaid subscriber.

[revat]

I don't know if they've updated the story, but it would probably help catch the other bad guy if they released a description of the other suspect.

Edited March 25, 2020 by revat

[shadroch]

5 hours ago, JollyComics said:

One person is caught. I am sure they can extract the information from him. Otherwise, they can find his residence or follow all leads to arrest the second person. Hopefully they will recover missing books.

That depends how seriously they take the crime and what the crime actually was. A strongarm robbery will get much attention than a car break in.

Hope the books are recovered or they were insured if not.

[JollyComics]

46 minutes ago, shadroch said:

That depends how seriously they take the crime and what the crime actually was. A strongarm robbery will get much attention than a car break in.

Hope the books are recovered or they were insured if not.

Personally, I hate to see all beauties disappeared forever.  I never know what happened to my beauty TEC #402 CGC 9.6 White Pages after all of my books were recovered after the post office postal workers were caught at their home with my books after a tip off. That was 2014.  It has been missing for 6 years. Sadly I didn't insure this.

Edited March 26, 2020 by JollyComics

[thehumantorch]

7 minutes ago, JollyComics said:

Personally, I hate to see all beauties disappeared forever.  I never know what happened to my beauty TEC #402 CGC 9.6 White Pages after all of my books were recovered after the post office postal workers were caught at their home with my books after a tip off. That was 2014.  It has been missing for 6 years. Sadly I didn't insure this.

Did you post about this?  I'd love to hear the story.

[James J Johnson]

6 hours ago, JollyComics said:

One person is caught. I am sure they can extract the information from him. .

If stubborn, they could use Dr.Szell's effective method to extract that info !

 

[James J Johnson]

31 minutes ago, JollyComics said:

Personally, I hate to see all beauties disappeared forever. .

They won't disappear forever. My guess is that at least one of them gets spotted soon. An FF 1 with white pages is a huge attention getter, in or out of any slab. Unkess they were stolen because the thief is a collector and plans to hold them indefinitely, they will show up. The hobby just has to be attentive and care enough to look twice at every 1, 2, or 3 offered for awhile. The #1 is very identifiable, and the 2 and 3 bear marks and mechanics that can positively ID them.

[shadroch]

Are those figures in Canadian money or has there been a run up on early FFs ?

 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by shadroch

[JollyComics]

25 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Did you post about this?  I'd love to hear the story.

Yes, it was posted here but it was a long time ago.    I was VERY lucky that I didn't lose $35,500 worth of my books without the insurance after shipping many packages to CL for five years without an incident.

I always photographed all books, keep recording all certification numbers and documentary before shipping them out.  There was a long line and I decided to drop them off at the post office (it was my biggest mistake in my life and I should had them to scan the barcodes) and watched the tracking number online for two days.  All boxes were NEVER scanned and the tracking numbers showed NO routes.  Went to PO where I dropped them off. They didn't have them.  CL never received them after 5 days (it was 2 day Priority Mail). Decided to contact USPS Inspector. They did their best to find those missing packages. It was already over two weeks and I was desperate. Watched eBay and all auction houses if my books showed up. I already informed CGC, CL, CC, HA and all other dealers (as much as I could provide all information to them). On the third week, I was jumpy and saw all my books were on eBay. The seller was https://www.sellmycomicbooks.com/  and dotcomcomics.  I contacted and explained them about my ordeals.  One of them was former CL employees and knew me well.  His partner who lives in Canada was hesitant to return my books back.  I decided to file a report to my local police and contacted PayPal to prevent them after I provided all documentary plus the police report.  The owners decided to do same thing with their local police.  CL was informed and acknowledged by both of us.  All of my books were only ten miles away from CL.  Pretty close.  Finally we learned that person who sold my books to Sell My Comic Books for only $7500 out of Chicago (that was my hunch).  We got her name and reported to USPS inspector.  PayPal decided to refund all money to them and asked them to return my books. I decided to ask the former CL employee to mail all of my books to CL until all of them were safe inside CL.  We just learned very little information about her.  She worked for USPS and decided to sell my books to get cash for her brother and boyfriend for drugs.  That was all we know.  USPS inspector disclosed all information.  I think they were fired and got arrested but there was no way we would know of.  My local police and other police closed the cases.  Only one book is missing. I think it's possibly somewhere in Chicago. Who knows?  I learned my lesson and always have them to scan the barcodes at USPS so all boxes can be tracked anywhere. I have to buy the insurance that over $500 every time.   That was the only incident in 40 years of collecting/selling/buying comic books.

I hate to see all beauties, rarities and expensive books are being stolen and are never seen again.

BTW,   all boxes are no longer routing through Chicago mail processing center after multiple mail thieves. That whole building is closed down and is cleansed.  That was what I heard two years ago.  I used to get scared of my packages going through that dreaded place but not anymore.