Theft at Rancho Obi-Wan

Seahawks

Jedi Knight
Joined
Feb 15, 2016
Messages
300
Steve Sansweet just released this statement on his website.

Hopefully Steve is able to recover most of the items and the thief gets locked up for a very long time. No place for this crap in the hobby.

http://www.ranchoobiwan.org/sadnews/

Dear fellow Star Wars fans and collectors,
I need to share some distressing news with you because I need your help.

In February we at Rancho Obi-Wan found out that we had been the victim of a major theft that surreptitiously took place over many months in late 2015 through 2016.
There were more than 100 valuable items stolen, the majority of them vintage U.S. and foreign carded action figures, many of them rare and important pieces. Most have either been resold or professionally appraised for a total of more than $200,000.

The theft came to light after Philip Wise, a good friend, major collector and owner of several Star Wars websites, posted news of the theft of his rare prototype rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure from his Texas warehouse. Zach Tann, a respected toy dealer and collector in Southern California, immediately notified Philip that he had purchased that figure from Carl Edward Cunningham, 45, a well-known Star Wars collector and R2-D2 builder from Marietta, Georgia.
Tann further told Philip that he previously had bought many other rare Star Wars collectibles from Carl and sent a detailed list. Philip said that he quickly concluded by the quantity and quality of items that they had likely been stolen from my collection here in Petaluma, California.

Tann is working closely with us and authorities to help recover and return as many of the stolen collectibles as possible. Without Zach Tann's call to Philip, which came despite great potential personal financial exposure to himself, we might still not know of the theft or its extent.
Carl surrendered on an arrest warrant from the Sonoma County, California Sheriff's Department at the end of March and was charged with felony grand theft. He is currently free on bail with additional hearings in the case scheduled.

I have known Carl for many years, considered him a good and trusted friend, and played host to him at my home numerous times. I, and the staff at Rancho Obi-Wan, are devastated that he is the alleged perpetrator of the thefts. Not only have important items been stolen from the collection, but also our time, energy and ability to trust unconditionally have taken a blow.

If you have any information about Carl Cunningham's activities or items that he has sold please write to [email protected]. If you think you may have purchased a stolen item, please be patient while we work through this process. It is our goal to resolve this situation as quickly as possible and to continue to use the collection at Rancho Obi-Wan to "Inspire through the Force" despite the destruction caused by one person.

Thank you for your help,

Steve Sansweet
Rancho Obi-Wan
 

spoons

Grand Master
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
8,314
Totally shocking. There are some real low lifes in the collecting community, I hope the pieces are recovered.
 

edd_jedi

Moderator
Staff member
Supporter
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,877
Location
UK
Well this changes things. I initially praised the guy for coming clean on the Fett assuming it was one silly mistake, but this is now clearly a long and calculated series of thefts that cannot be forgiven. With the amounts involved in the hundreds of thousands, that's got to be jail time.
 

Mini99

Sith Lord
Supporter
Joined
Sep 1, 2016
Messages
4,755
If it could get any worse the fact that accused is a friend and fellow collector.
A sad day. :(
 

Bunglebubs

Jedi Knight
Joined
Dec 13, 2015
Messages
488
Location
Scotland
Terrible news, that guy should get strung up. It will probably change the way others will be allowed to see his collection now searching you as you leave or something because of one scumbag. Feel for Steve as he comes across as a really nice guy, hopefully he will get everything back and that anyone who unknowing bought any of the stolen items get their money back too.
 

Snaketibe

Grand Master
Supporter
Joined
Jan 16, 2016
Messages
5,383
Location
United Kingdom
Let's hope Steve recovers all of his stolen items and that the thieving scumbag that took them gets sent to prison for a long time.

I know Steve's collection is vast, but I am a little surprised that a theft on the apparent scale of this one didn't come to light earlier :!:
 

SublevelStudios

Sith Lord
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
2,598
You know, there are more thieving low life scum bag 'respected collectors' out there than you think but this is top of the tree.

I hope they all get what's coming to them.
 

wrighty

Sith Lord
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Messages
1,406
Location
Sydney
To steal that amount of stuff, >100 items, it's a premeditated and planned action. I suspect it was not items on display but in storage that are missing. How many MOCs do you think you can sneak out at one time? It's really sad that this has happened.
 

palitoyjunky

Sith Lord
Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Messages
3,017
Back ****ing news when a so called trusted friend does that to u :evil:

I dearly hope u get all ur pieces back Steve.
 

weasel

Moderator
Staff member
Supporter
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
19,847
Location
My Island
Good to hear he's been rumbled and is looking at jail time.

What I don't get is HOW he thought he would get away with it. By the sounds of it he nicked some fairly rare and hard to find items. Those are easy to trace as shown by how quickly they worked out it was him. ****ing dim on his part. He was always gonna get rumbled. He may have made decent money in the short term but the end game was always gonna be jail so why bother?
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 365 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.

Latest posts

Top Bottom