Around 22 years ago A storage locker of mine was broken into and most of the bikes I had inside were taken. All stingray type bikes. Krates including a Grey Ghost, Mini-Twin, Early Stingrays, 10 bikes in all. I filed a police report, even had the serial number of some of the bikes. I made sure to hit all the local Flea markets, local swap meets, looked online, a lot of collectors in the hobby at that time were also looking out for these bike for me, nothing surfaced. A few month after the theft I was at the Hot August Nights Swap Meet at the Reno Fairgrounds. I see one of my bikes in a spot for sale. A 1965 Coppertone Deluxe Stingray I had purchased from the original owner a few years earlier. It was a stunning all original bike, one of the nicest I have had. The seller was someone I knew as he would be at most of the auto swaps I also was at, and we had even done a few deals together. I asked him how much was the bike and think he said something like he was asking 3 or 4 hundred, it still had some great parts on it. Now this person was not a friend, just someone I knew from the swaps and was and seemed like a nice guy. The bike had been butchered as someone had tried to make it into a BMX type bike, frame had a cut/notch in it by the sprocket, beautiful reverse screen guard was on the bike but also had been cut. I did not tell him right away it was my stolen bike. I asked him where he got the bike, and he told me at a flea market I knew about, and he bought it a month earlier. Now being a bike guy who knew these bikes I knew he would not have done those modifications to the bike, he knew the value of these original bikes, and he was a nice fellow in my opinion. So I told him about the bike, how it was mine and stolen, I even carried around with me the police report whenever I went to a meet that I showed him. I asked him if he would mind telling me what he paid for the bike and he said $150 or something around that I have to say it has been a long time and my memory is not what it once was. So I told him I did not think for a minute he stole my bikes, but it is my bike, and I said I know we buy and sell bikes that we really do not know if they could have been stolen at one time or another in their lifetime but we do not know that. I said I would pay him what he paid for the bike, $150 as I did not want him to be out any money, and I said if he did not think that was fair I could get the police, and with the police report I had I would probably be awarded the bike and get to go home with it for nothing. He said of course he would take the $150 and thanked me for being so fair about it and that he had no idea the bike was stolen which to this day I am sure was the case. I brought the bike back home with me to San Jose, and still have that bike. It is a tough thing to be violated and have items stolen. Do not beat yourself up over this and try to re-think it. The situation could have been handled many different ways, you did what you thought was right which is all that matters.
I also had a nice Pea Picker which was also one my stolen bikes turn up on Ebay not long after the theft. In that case I turned to the Police department which in hindsight I regret doing as I did not get that bike back. That is a story for another time. The coppertone 65 was the only bike I ever got back.
