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A cautionary tale with a happy ending....and a nod to TheCabe...

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bobcycles

Riding a '38 Autocycle Deluxe
A few weeks back I was checking out the Cabe one afternoon....and noticed a super nice Colson Olympic bike pop across the
top Ebay banner.. I clicked on it... it was actually local...so I made an offer and the seller contacted me direct agreeing
to sell the bike for the offer. He then asked me if I'd be interested in a few other vintage bikes. Sent pix of some nice
Higgins bikes, including an incredibly restored Jet Flow. I made an offer. Accepted! I hit the bank and was all set for
an hour drive to pick up 5 very nice 50's ballooners. Then Something hit me... One or two of these bikes looked familiar...
and I recognized them belonging to a well known antique car restorer/bike collector here locally. A subsequent call revealed
that indeed they were not being sold by the owner and it was all news to him. Turns out he had the bikes in storage at a
self storage facility, rent was paid up, but someone had broken into to his unit, ripped off the bikes and some other
valuables. According to the local Sheriffs who responded to the break in... a rampant and more recent I guess due to
Covid and more desperate people out there, epidemic is where criminals will rent a unit in a complex only to be able to
gain access to the other units. My friends unit had a new lock on it after the break in. Apparently the thieves were planning
on visit #2. The happy ending was the guy selling the bikes was a Toy collector who ran "Want" ads locally looking for
toys etc. The thieves saw his add responded to it and sold him the 5 bikes for >gulp< 1000 bucks. He was 100% cooperative
and I literally had to call him and break the news that the bikes were hot as I was heading out to buy them. The next day
the owner and I made the road trip to recovery. Went down without a hitch, but kind of shady that the guy who ended up
buying the stolen bikes, had no contact info for whoever sold them to him. hmmmm... The police did arrest some people
the next day at the complex.
Had I not seen the ebay banner here on the Cabe ...who knows where the bikes would have ended up.

Storage units are NOT that safe.... I might suggest looking into police reports for the units anyone on here might be
renting for break-ins and theft. A happy ending somewhat although some of the valuables stolen in this instance
have not yet been recovered... but at least all the bikes were.
 
Nice job Detective Bob!
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I hope you were compensated for your fine work. ;)
 
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