My Stolen Collection - Update

I was hoping to hold off posting this until it was 100% sorted with both the police and the insurance company. In fact I was considering not going public with it at all, as stories like this do nothing but harm the collecting community, and I don't make a habit of falling out with people. However due to this post made on SWCC tonight and the subsequent influx of PMs I've had on various forums about it, I need to post my side of the story.

You may remember that back in 2007, I had approximately 70 carded figures stolen in a burglary at my parents house, which included a near-complete tri logo set, and an extensive Luke Bespin focus including many foreign MOCs, a couple of which were the only known examples. The figures were worth approximately £10,000 GBP. I had been collecting for over 10 years, and owned some of the figures stolen since 1994. If you missed the story, here's the original threads:

http://forum.rebelscum.com/t988969/
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t989279/

Fast forward nearly 5 years to January of this year. Somebody on my forum makes a post about an unusual tri logo on ebay, and by pure chance, Eagle-eyed Joe spotted it was one of my stolen figures. Here's the thread:

http://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10087

I'm not going to post the entire story, you can figure out most of it by reading the above thread, but in short it turned out that Ben, owner of the SWCC forum, had sold at least 9 of my stolen figures over the past year or so, and still had 11 in his possession. It's worth mentioning that I not only knew Ben in the collecting world, but had also known him personally since I was a teenager. He lived in my home town, was friends with my brother, and had even been to my house before.

As I knew him, the first thing I did was contact Ben himself rather than go straight to the police. How did he come to be in possession of at least 20 of my 70 stolen figures? His story is that he bought them from a car boot sale (flea market) shortly after the theft. When he bought them, he claims he did not know they were stolen. His story up to this point may well be true, I have never contested it.

What I have to make absolutely clear is that unfortunately, the story is not quite as clear cut as it sounds in the SWCC statement. Did he come to me when he realised the figures he had were my stolen property? No. Did he stop selling them when he discovered they were stolen? No. Did he offer to share some of the hundreds/thousands of pounds he'd made from selling them with me? No. And most importantly in my eyes, when offered the opportunity by me to do the right thing and give them back, did he do the right thing? No. There was very little cooperation or remorse shown, which left me with no choice but to go to the police.

So the good news is that I have at least some closure on what happened to my collection, and it looks like I will be getting some of my figures back in the near future, once it's been settled with the insurance company who made a pay out on the theft back in 2007.

I'm not posting this as a 'Watch Out' thread, in fact I've left out a lot of details that I have no wish to share online, so I hope he can put this whole situation down to experience without turning it into a big online slagging match. I'm posting this because sooner or later I may be limelighting or selling these figures, and understandably people are going to want to know how I have come to own them again.

That's all for now, all I can say is that I'm thrilled at the thought of getting even a fraction of my once large collection back, and that I owe a huge, huge thanks to Joe for the initial spot, and several other members of my forum who helped me trace some of the figures (who are welcome to step forward if they want to.) It's not the nicest story, but I'm pleased to say that some good has come of it.

Glad you will get some closure at least Ed & that with luck you will have some of them back in your possession once again, that must be a good feeling, just such a shady sounding situation, reading between the lines make this sound very iffy for Ben at best, I just hope you will be able to put this behind you once & for all as it must have been a huge burden.

Fingers crossed you get this resolved quickly now, as I remember it well as it happened when I was last active on the forum back in 2007.

Onward & upward :wink:

Frunkstar said:

Glad you will get some closure at least Ed & that with luck you will have some of them back in your possession once again, that must be a good feeling, just such a shady sounding situation, reading between the lines make this sound very iffy for Ben at best, I just hope you will be able to put this behind you once & for all as it must have been a huge burden.

Fingers crossed you get this resolved quickly now, as I remember it well as it happened when I was last active on the forum back in 2007.

Onward & upward :wink:

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yeah x2 Edd.

Really hope you get it all sorted.

Congrats mate- this story is quite famous as i remember hearing about this on and off in the star wars collecting world.

Theres alot of weight there that can be let go of.

Best Wishies- i hope we get a new kick ass limelight.

A lot of this has been bubbling up for a while now and I am glad that it is out it the open.

I am sure that people will be able to read in-between the lines and hope that whoever was responsible for this theft is rightly excluded from the community

Would love to see this Limelight Ed and I bet you are well chuffed to have some of the figures back

Oh - and great spot Joe - your eagle eyes miss nothing

Glad to hear this is finally coming to a resolution. I hope all turns out well for you.

Glad you have some closure Edd, hope you get most of the collection back, well done Joe for spotting the fig!

Edd thats fantastic news mate. Just a shame its not the whole collection, but as time goes on more and more might come to light. Well done to everybody who has helped and been eagle eyed to spot them.

Good to have some closure on this Edd, and I hope this gives you the desire to continue collecting.

For anyone that didn't know I ended up with 2 of Edds figures, and to say the last few months have been difficult would be an understatement.

Anyway onwards and upwards and with Celebration 6 just around the corner, I hope 2012 turns out to be a great year for Star Wars collecting after a rather poor start.

Darren

Great News Edd!
I can only echo what the other guys have said. Onwards and Upwards and I look forward to see you back collecting again Liam

Great to hear you're getting some of your collection back.

Not so great to hear that they were found in the hands of another collector (especially one you knew on a personal level) who failed miserably to do the right thing.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Glad it's all out there now Edd, appreciate you posting everything up for the community to be aware of, I know everyone involved in helping track these figures down and those that were unfortunately informed they had bought stolen figures wanted it out there in the open.

Not much to say about Ben, plenty of four letter words come to mind though.

This is great news Edd!

I'm glad that you've finally discovered what happened to your stolen collection & will be getting some of it back & congrats to everyone involved in helping you piece together the information! 8)

I find it very shocking & extremely disturbing that Ben has been involved as SWCC was the first forum i joined when i started collecting again & considered him a friend!

Ben has always been very rabid in the past with his dislike of scammers & all things dishonest in the hobby & certainly had a lot to say especially regarding the incident with Wolff a couple of years ago.The phrase "pot calling the kettle black" now springs to mind especially with him now being involved with a stolen collection! :roll:

To the guys like Darren,Lee & Jim who inadvertedly ended up with items from Edd's collection,don't beat yourselves up about it as you did nothing wrong apart from buy items in good faith & weren't to know that they were part of a stolen collection!

What i find strange is how Ben managed to have enough money on him at a carboot sale to buy £1000's of pounds worth of moc trilogos

because i always see stalls at a carboot with 70+ moc minty figures and just pull out the 8 grand and buy them...yeah ****ing right

Edd I am so glad you have managed to get a chunk of your collection back. I was outraged for you when I first heard about this and I am outraged now that a "friend" was the one who did this - I sincerely hope that Ben "mysteriously" ends up being put in a ****ing wheelchair.

This is the first I heard of this but it makes terrible reading. To think that a collector and friend could do this. You don't have to be a detective to see what's happened, but hopefully the old bill have enought to go on for a prosecution. I doubt he'll get what he deserves though, maybe the collecting community ignoring him will be more painful.
At least you got some mocs back Edd, but there are still loads missing. Maybe by going back through his PayPal and eBay, the police can track some more down.
It's meant to be innocent until proven guilty, but I think it's clear to see what happened. Well done to Joe and the rest for noticing the Leia. It could easily have slipped by. If you were nearby, I'd give you a pat on the back, but you're not, so have a wink! :wink:

Edd having his entire collection photographed and documented is really what solved this mystery, it's one thing to see a list of figures and keep an eye out but if you have pictures of them to compare to it's a piece of piss to match figures up. After the Leia was spotted I managed to confirm two other figures that had come from Edd's theft and ended up in the hands of the same seller, both traced back to Ben.

For those interested they were:

Edd's Trilogo Tie Fighter Pilot:



Same figure sold on Ebay in January 2011:



Edd's ESB Kenner Luke Bespin AFA 80:



Same figure up for sale on Ebay January 2012 (Now UKG graded):




I hope people can learn from all of this and remember to catalogue things, take pictures, keep receipts etc - it makes everything so much easier if you do.

If anyone wants to keep searching (as there must be more out there on the market and in peoples collections) you can check out Edd's pictures here on his site: http://www.jedicollection.co.uk/

Once again Edd- Just so happy for you mate!

lol what a twonk, clever enough to crack open the AFA case to get it UKG graded but dumb enough not to do anything about the sticker, even if leaving a small rip or inking it for a lesser grade and profit would be better than being caught.

The thing is now though, if UKG can tell you who sent them the item to be graded which I suspect was Ben, theres even more a chance he was the thief as theres just too many coincidences to be coincidences.

good work Joe.

BTW never heard of SWCC or ben till today

Thanks for all the kind words everyone, it's much appreciated. It's been a very stressful few months since finding out, and I'm glad it's slowly coming to a close. I'd like to answer a few questions made in the replies above.

Firstly, I realise you're all very curious as to what has happened, but I don't think it's right to retell personal conversations online, so what happened between Ben and I is not going to be publicised. I'm sure you've all heard the phrase "if you don't have anything good to say about somebody, don't say anything." That phrase applies here with bells on I'm afraid. What I will say is that I'm obviously not stupid, so myself and the police have asked many of the same questions as you have, to which he has had to answer to.

Regarding the police investigation, as far as I'm aware it is now over. So if anybody else does realise they bought something of mine from Ben, I'd be interested to know for peace of mind, but don't worry - I will not be asking for any back and you will not be in trouble with the police. Anyone who bought these figures in good faith will not lose out. I have no idea how many he actually had to start with and has since sold, it adds up to about 20 at the moment but it's highly unlikely we've managed to trace every single one, as it was all done behind closed doors in PMs, and in person.

I would like to add that both Jim and Darren from SWCC have been very helpful since this all came to light, and I thank them for their cooperation. It obviously didn't look great that three admins from the same forum had my figures in their possession, but I'm happy that Jim and Darren had no idea they were stolen. The reason I had to mention their forum as well as the individual is obviously because Ben was one of the founders, and it's likely many of the sales were made there.

I didn't want to drag anyone in to this unwillingly, but as they've now chipped in I'd like to say a big thanks to Darren @ Starzone and Lee Gregory too. Both helped a lot with both the research and the police investigation. Lee was generous enough to offer to split the money made from the sale of the Leia he had with me, which was a great gesture. I'm pleased to say there are plenty of good people left in this hobby.

lee gray said:

lol what a twonk, clever enough to crack open the AFA case to get it UKG graded but dumb enough not to do anything about the sticker, even if leaving a small rip or inking it for a lesser grade and profit would be better than being caught.

The thing is now though, if UKG can tell you who sent them the item to be graded which I suspect was Ben, theres even more a chance he was the thief as theres just too many coincidences to be coincidences.

good work Joe.

BTW never heard of SWCC or ben till today

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Would be very interesting to find that one out - still presume it has been looked at by the Police, otherwise they would have done something. It does seem a shame that this little ****er has gotten away with it - but his reputation will be in tatters so I think he will probably have to find a new hobby