Gestolen collectie !!!!!

[Brianlinden]

Ik zag dit staan op een ander forum. Ik was diep geschokt hoe iemand een hele collectie had gestolen van een man die er jarenlang voor gewerkt heeft!

ALERT !! STOLEN COLLECTION !!
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I am passing this on to all of you:Collector's Alert - Stolen Items

I am sending this in an attempt to help a fellow collector, Clive Watkins, whose items were stolen. You can imagine the anger at having your collection taken from you, please read below and keep an eye out. Thank you.

Sebastian Bianchi



"Significant WWII German Visor Cap Collection

STOLEN

from Luxembourg on April 8, 2003

A reward will be provided for any information that leads to the recovery of these caps.

On April 8th, 2003, a knowledgeable person entered my house in Luxembourg and stole almost my entire collection of (for the most part) mint and rare WWII German visor caps. The thief is most likely Belgian, and may attempt to sell these caps altogether. Please, please, please - I would ask you to consider the 20 years I spent collecting these caps, and have some pity; needless to say, the monetary value of these items is profound, and I will certainly compensate anyone who can help me recover the caps (any of them).

All items are original and in excellent condition unless otherwise stated. I've included links to photos if available (if you think you've found the cap and need more photos, I may have them). Frankly, it's difficult to give too much detail when the caps are no longer in front of me (and I'm so incredibly angry), but some of these caps are almost one of a kind (see the Matrosenmutze with Graf Spee tally, and size 61 KM beamte summer top visor). The point is that if you are offered a large collection that contains some of these caps, please be aware that they are stolen. I can be contacted at lignemaginot@yahoo.com.

The collecting world is small, and I cannot believe that these caps won't surface soon. Please help me recover them by forwarding this auction to anyone you know who collects WWII headgear. Thanks.

1. Beautiful and perfect Pioneer Officer's Double Erel marked visor cap. Celluloid Sweatshield is 100% and has a rarely seen distributor's name: Bulow & Sohn Podejach. http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... ejach1.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... ejach2.jpg

2. Wehrmacht General's visor, Tellerform (gold piping, gold chin cord)

3. Kriegsmarine NCO

4. Kriegsmarine Kapitanleutnant

5. Kriegsmarine Fregattenkapitan

6. Cavalry Feldmutze crusher cap (yellow piping, no chin strap, leather visor, marked "Deutsches Arbeit", super shape - was being supported by a hand-made circular cardboard insert

7. Panzer Officer's visor cap (Erel, pink piping, silver strap)

8. Forester Officer (dark green piping, silver chin cords)

9. Forester Officer (all leather visor, dark green piping, silver chin cords, sweat diamond marked "Sonderklasse")

http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 4_for2.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 5_for1.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 8_for8.jpg
10. Grenschutz Officer (dark green piping)

11. Heeresverwaltungs-Truppe (from 1944) Officer (light blue)

12. Waffen SS Officer (white piping, Pekuro, no sweatshield, thief left the eagle on the table) http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 2_wss4.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... _wss12.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 4_wss1.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 2_wss6.jpg

13. Kriegsmarine Beamte summer top visor, huge size (61), celluloid sweatshield 100% with faint markings for August Geiger. Also has original price tag in the back with the AG logo on it and a price of 8.95.

14. Luftwaffe Flak artillery Officer (red piping, silver chin cord)

15. Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) Officer (crimson piping, material appears to be Italian with "shirt sleeve" lining)

16. Matrosenmutze (Donald Duck cap) with insignia tally for Panzerschiff Admiral Graff Spee, large size, couple of moth holes, celluloid diamond with "Die Atlantika" and image of u-boat), not the convertible kind.

17. Matrosenmutze (Donald Duck cap) with insignia and tally for Linienschiff Schleswig Holstein, maker's diamond is red felt with "Deutsches Arbiet" on it, not convertible kind.

18. Matronsemutze, convertible, with no insignia, but owner's name tag is stitched to the crown - Heintz Drescher. Regualr "Kriegsmarine" cap tally. http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 9_mat6.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 1_mat4.jpg

19. Infantry Officer's visor cap (white piping, silver chin strap)

20. Infantry Other Rank's visor cap (white piping, leather chin strap)

21. Artillery Officer's visor cap (red piping, silver chin cord)

22. Artillery Other Rank's visor cap (red piping, leather chin cord)

23. Artillery Other Rank's visor cap (red piping, leather chin cord)

24. Cavalry Officer's visor cap (yellow piping, silver chin strap)

25. Cavalry Other Rank's visor cap (yellow piping, leather chin cord).

26. Medical Other Rank's visor cap (cornflower blue piping, leather chin strap).

27. Pioneer Officer's Visor cap (black piping, silver chin strap)

28. Pioneer Other Rank's visor cap (black piping, leather chin strap) http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 6_pio4.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 6_pio3.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 3_pio6.jpg

29. Wehrmelde Personnel Officer visor cap (Orange-red piping, silver chin strap)

30. Fahr und Kraftfahr Officer's visor cap (light blue piping, silver chin strap)

31. Gebirgsjager Other Ranks's visor cap (light green piping)

32. Nachrichten (communications) Officer's visor cap (lemon yellow piping)

33. Panzergrenadier Officer's visor cap (white-green piping)

34. Sonderfuhrer officer visor (grey blue piping)

35. Coastal Arillery other rank's visor (dark green piping, gold eagle was attached when stolen) http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 6_coa2.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 1_pio8.jpg

36. Luftwaffe Other rank's flight crew visor cap (yellow piping, leather chin strap)

37. Luftwaffe Other rank's flight crew visor caps (yellow piping, officer aspirant silver chin cord)

38. Ortsgruppe NSDAP visor cap (unlike in the photos, all insignia was attached when stolen), severe mothing to piping along top front, RZM tag is clear - see photos). http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 2_ort1.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 5_ort8.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 5_ort3.jpg

39. Luftwaffe communications other rank's (light brown

40. Luftwaffe Officer's visor cap (silver with all bullion insignia, Erel)

41. Luftwaffe Officer's summer issue visor (silver bullion insiginia

42. Unknown Police visor (?) (orange piping) http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 911_a7.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 422_a3.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 350_a8.jpg

43. Allgemeine SS other ranks visor, perfect apart from totally missing celluloid sweatshield http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 9_ass1.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 0_ass7.jpg http://images.andale.com/f2/125/124/735 ... 2_ass5.jpg


Als jullie iets weten kan je reageren hier:

http://www.wwiirelics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18

Ik hoop dat deze man al zijn items weer terug krijgt !

[Peter M]

Als ik mij niet vergis had deze man alles al terug. het bericht is ook al meer dan een jaar oud.

[Tim]

Verschrikkelijk ...
Hopelijk is die dief zo dom om er een paar op ebay te zetten ofzo, ik hou ieder geval een oogje in het zeil.
Maar voor hetzelfde geld is het natuurlijk een doorgedraaide verzamelaar die ze laten stelen heeft en zitten die nog jarenlang in één of andere duistere privecollectie ...

[Tim]

ah

[Dodo]

Als ik mij niet vergis had deze man alles al terug. het bericht is ook al meer dan een jaar oud.

de plaatjes doen het ook niet meer:
http://images.andale.com/img/1pixel.gif

Wat een collectie, die man moest zijn schrik van het leven gehad hebben toen ie opmerkte dat het weg was...

[Peter M]

Ik geloof dat het verhaal als volgt ging:

De man is op Ciney gaan rondvragen of er iemand toevallig een Generaals schrimmutze had, zogezegd 'omdat hij er echt nergens één kon vinden en omdat dat het enige was dat nog ontbrak om zijn generaalsuniform compleet te maken'. En bij één handelaar had hij prijs, vanonder de toonbank haalde hij zijn schrimmutze. Huiszoeking laten doen en de mens had zijn collectie terug (tenminste, een groot deel ervan).

Ik geloof dat alles gestolen was omdat er werkers bezig waren aan het installeren van een badkamer. Eén van die mensen moet de collectie gezien hebben en die informatie hebben doorgegeven.

[gilles]

Als ik mij niet vergis had deze man alles al terug. het bericht is ook al meer dan een jaar oud.

Weet je hoe hij zijn collectie "teruggevonden" heeft?

[Brianlinden]

Hmm okee het was niet op dat andere forum vermeld. Als het echt zo is kan deze topic dicht !

[Peter M]

Ik laat hem nog open, het kan een les zijn voor iedereen.


@Gilles: lees bericht voor je

[Dingo]

Het grootste deel van de collectie is idd terug, onderstande tekst vond ik op een ander forum:

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Dear everyone who ever expressed a word of support for me during the past 4 weeks,

I certainly never thought, even in my wildest dreams, that I would have the opportunity to write this email to all of you.

As you know, on April 8th my entire collection of rare and near mint WWII German Visor Caps was stolen from my house. I immediately suspected the Belgian plumber who was working for a company that had been hired to renovate the bathroom in my house. I provided all the evidence to the Luxembourg police, who promptly proceeded to do absolutely nothing except provide me with paperwork for my insurance company - they did not even bother to interview the plumber. I also contacted everyone I knew via the internet (where most of you saw the announcement), put an "auction" on ebay, and many of you kindly set up web pages for me to provide the information to your guests.

I am now going to tell you an incredible story that will hopefully provide some satisfaction for those of you who have ever had anything ripped off - the fact that the thieves have been caught, and that they "possibly" (I have to use that word until they are all convicted) involve a government employee, a museum operator, and others, just brings a smile to my face
when I think about it. Although I will provide real names later, I have to use fake names for the moment. In addition, there are several other people involved in this who I will not mention at the moment because
the police are still building their cases against them.

On Friday, April 25th, my brother flew in from the US and we did a quick tour of the Ardennes, stopping at various places in northern Luxembourg before going to Bastogne. Everywhere we visited, I left information
about the stolen collection. In Bastogne, we visited a small store/museum in town, where I told the owner about the theft. He seemed very interested and said that we should set a trap for the thief - I could
place the ads in the local paper, and he would be the contact - if anyone approached him with my collection, he would call me. Sounded good to me, so I said I would call him about it. When we left the store, my
brother asked if I had seen the SS dog tag that was in the store - it was the dog tag that my brother had given me a couple of years ago (my brother researches the info on dog tags, and he remembered this one in
particular). He asked me if it had been stolen with the caps. I did not know for sure - perhaps I had sold it at the Arlon (Belgium) militaria show. When I got home, I confirmed that the SS dog tag was not there.

On Sunday, April 27th, I attended the Ciney (Belgium) militaria show. A gentleman who I will call Fred (who occasionally purchases helmets from me) asked if I had anything to sell. As he turned to leave, I casually mentioned to him the stolen collection, asking him to let me know if anyone approached him. He turned back towards me and asked what was in the collection. I began by telling him about the General's cap. He asked if it had a name in it. No but it had initials. What were the initials? Fred then told me that that cap had been offered to him two days previously (on the Friday) by a man in Stavelot (Belgium) who I will call Degmont. The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it before. Fred said he had seen many other caps at Degmont house (including Kriegsmarine hats) - and in fact, Degmont was going to be at Ciney. Fred told me that he would call Degmont on his cell phone to set up a meeting there in Ciney at one of the entrance doors, and tell Degmont that I was interested in buying some caps. With my mind racing, I approached Degmont with Fred. As soon as he saw me, Degmont announced that he had returned all the caps (just 5 of them, he said - no KM hats) to the man who had sold them to him. I asked why he had returned them. Because he suspected they were stolen. Why did suspect that they were stolen? Because he "suddenly" remembered that he had "perhaps" seen the General's cap last November when it was part of a large collection that was being sold by a Luxembourgher. Then I remembered where I had heard Degmont's name; the Luxembourgher had sold the collection to me after he had offered it to Degmont - the Luxembourgher decided not to sell it to Degmont after Degmont had spent 30 minutes fingering the General's cap and then announced that it was fake.

I then asked for the name of the person who had sold him the caps. Degmont announced that he didn't know who it was - he puts ads in the paper, people come to his house, he buys the stuff, and they go away. I asked how he managed to return the things. After a pause, Degmont said, "He came back to sell more stuff." Fred was outraged, asking why Degmont had tried to sell him a General's cap for 1500 Euro when it was worth twice that much. Degmont mumbled something, and Fred then left. I gave Degbomont my name and number and asked him to call me if he remembered anything.

I then called the Belgian police on my cell phone. They told me that I had to go to Stavelot (about 1.5 hours from Ciney) in order to report all of this. So I left for Stavelot, hoping that I'd make it there before Degmont got home and disposed of the caps (if he still had them as I suspected). At Stavelot, the police were excellent - they took the matter very seriously. The head inspector who I will call Roux was born in La Gleize and his family had donated German items that they had found in their house, to the museum at La Gleize. They had not heard of Degmont, so Roux called the man who runs the La Gleize museum - this man was at Ciney and not only did he know Degmont (a big collector), he had just seen him in Ciney. Roux, now that he knew that Degmont was not yet home, sent a patrol car over to Degmont's house immediately. They took the rest of my statement (and a list of the missing caps, with any photos, which I managed to print off of the internet thanks to you guys!), and I went home.

That night at about 10pm, I received a call from Roux - they had ended up searching the homes of three people and found the five caps, including the General's cap. The last person whose house they searched admitted to knowing Philippe, the plumber. Apparently, Degmont had in fact returned the caps to the person who had sold them to him, but not only did he know who the man was, he knew his number and where he lived. That person, who I'll call Luche, is a small timer who knows nothing about militaria, but who had been told that these things were worth something (you can be the judge of whether Degmont would have held this General's cap for 30 minutes last November, and then not immediately have remembered/suspected it when he saw it being offered to him for sale a few months later by someone who knows nothing about the hobby). Luche immediately gave the name of a man named Petitjean (who apparently is the former proprietor of a museum in La Roche en Ardennes). When the inspectors questioned Petitjean, they immediately asked if he knew a plumber named Philippe; he admitted that he did. However, when they questioned him about the caps, Petitjean said that he had acquired only these five caps from some Germans who came to his house, but he did not know them, blah, blah, blah. All three individuals signed affidavits stating that their stories were true and that they did not know the whereabouts of any other caps.

I went to the Malmedy-Stavelot police station the next day, Monday, to pick up the five caps. The police said that they had only just begun their investigation, and that they would soon be questioning Philippe, the plumber. Overall, the police were informative, but they evidently knew more than they were willing to tell me at that time - which was fine with me.

On Monday evening, I received an agitated and confused call from Degmont, who at least seemed more talkative than when we spoke at Ciney. With his wife in the background providing prompting, he side stepped the issue of having lied to me, and seem to only want to convey the idea that he had no more caps and had nothing to do with the robbery. I said almost nothing, but immediately afterwards I informed the police of the phone call.

On Wednesday, I received a call from the owner of the small store/museum in Bastogne, the one that had "my" dog tag. He reminded me that I should send him a list of the missing items. I said that I would do it, but I still had some strange feelings about it.

On Friday morning, after having waited several days and unable to stand the suspense, I called Roux on his cell phone; he was just on his way into the house of Philippe, and he would call me later. However, I did not hear anything that day.

On Saturday morning, my wife's cell phone rang at 7:30am. It was Philippe calling from a pay phone and he wanted to come to our house. No way, I said. I called the police and left a message saying that Philippe had called us. However, at 10:30am, he showed up at our house in his car with his wife and two kids. I answered the door and, after making some excuses for why he did it, he announced that he wanted to return the caps; he "couldn't live with himself." We emptied the bags on the dining room table and I saw that although many of the caps were there, many of the most valuable ones were still missing - something he had declined to tell me before we emptied the bags. He said he would attempt to find these as quickly as possible. I called the police again and left them a message. About and hour later, Roux called and said that during the interrogation the previous day, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Philippe had admitted to the crime; the police had decided not to arrest him in order to allow him to "find" the caps and return them. The police were going to question Philippe again that afternoon, and they would also need to get another statement from me about everything that Philippe had said when he delivered the caps. We decided to meet in Bastogne that afternoon, after they had questioned Philippe again. The irony of meeting at the Sherman tank at the Place McAuliffe in Bastogne to discuss the theft of WWII German visor caps did not escape me.

That afternoon, I gave the police my statement about the morning's events. They told me that after they had interrogated Philippe again that afternoon, they were convinced that despite his sworn statements, Degmont did in fact have more of the caps. When they left me, they were on their way to Degmont's house, where they would announce that either he cooperate completely, or he would be going to jail immediately. Late on Saturday night, I received a call from Roux telling me that they had recovered several more caps, mostly Kriegsmarine, from Degmont and Petitjean's houses. In addition to the caps at Degmont's house, they had recovered "a lot" of stolen, un-registered, live, antique weapons including Lugers, Walthers, etc, etc, etc - the police were very happy. As for the caps that they found at Degmont's house - they had passed through another re-seller - this one the owner of a small store/museum in Bastogne?.

Yesterday, I went once again to the police station in Malmedy to collect these latest finds. All in all, I am still missing 11 caps, most of them Luftwaffe. Philippe is doing his best to locate everything because he's looking at 5 years in prison, and the police already know the whereabouts of several more of the caps. The police told me that Degmont is a government employee, and that the case against him (and all the others) for concealing and selling stolen property is overwhelming. All of these people are looking at a long-protracted struggle with the law - not to mention the civil law-suit that I will be launching against them.

Sometimes, there is justice, and I just want to say that I am stunned by the efficacy of the Belgian police - Agatha Christie's Inspector Poireau couldn't hold a candle to the police at Malmedy.

In the end, I have the following advice for all of you collectors:

Don't show your collection to just anyone - although you may like to think (like me) that everyone in our hobby is honorable, it just isn't true.

Tell your insurance company about your collection , and provide them with an updated list every 6 months or so.

Take photos of those items that you intend to keep for a long period of time - items in your collection don't usually have serial numbers (like watches), so having photos is the only way to say exactly what's yours.

Don't expect the police to do anything - it's up to you to do your own investigation and provide your own breaks.

[Robin V]

Jezus, afschuwelijk om zoiets mee te maken.
Dat stuk over de Belgische politie klopt helemaal...

[Dodo]

Die man heeft wel erg veel geluk gehad!

[Peter M]

Het verhaal is dus ingewikkelder dan de versie die ik had gehoord, maar het blijft een verschrikkelijk verhaal, met verzachtend eind natruulijk.

[jacob]

Ik laat ook niet aan jan en alleman mijn verzameling zien

[Bjorn]

Gelukkig heeft de man alles weer terug, zou nu wel een flinke beveiliging (camera's?) in huis hebben denk ik, tja, alles wat geld waard is he word gestolen, vernield en nagemaakt...