Last year I overheard some sellers at the Dayton Hamfest complaining about some theft at the show. One was a tube dealer and somebody swiped a bunch of his valuable audio tubes while he was busy attending to another customer. It seems that the tube audio crowd tends to sometimes attract the type of people who would steal like this. That was the only time that I have ever heard of theft at a swap meet that I have attended.

I have personally been lucky when selling at swap meets and nothing has been stolen from me. One time I did have some goon dribble coffee across my table, including a pile of books, and walk off without saying anything

My story about the guy who canceled his check was an audio guy, and of coarse the KT88 was most likely also an audio guy. I had never considered that.

David

I refuse to do checks. It really is not worth it at this point. Too much hassle.

I would never ask or expect a vendor at at swap that I didn't know to accept a personal check from me. It's a swap meet. Cash talks and everything else walks.

Mark K8KZ

My situation was with a regular member who had hosed over many, but no one was comfortable with sharing their experiences with others.

DW

It is kind of you to have trusted the guy.

Mark

I spoke to more than a couple of serious collector-dealers who have known certain people who help themselves to a knob or two off their sets. Especially the collectors who have storage spaces with project sets. Some people think it's a grab-bag! As a person who's been passionately into the hobby for 35+ years, I have and never will lower myself to even think of doing something like that. This hobby should be an outlet for fun, not something to add more stress to life. It's a shame.

Easy answer,
Thieves are in every hobby.

As for the thefts, I have a really big amount of radio but noting super great usually. I leave them out all day and night uncovered. I dont think I have ever had something stolen. If I did then it was unknown to me.

Tom H had a bag of really good knobs swiped off his table in the fall, Another guy has something taken while he was there but was distracted.

It will not stop so maybe I will hook up a video surveillance? I have experience in it and the equipment to do it but who wants to steal a cruddy 20, LOL

Kirk

Sorry to hear about the thefts. I guess that the temptation to pilfer expensive items to sell on EBay is too great for some people. When I sell at a meet, I take my son along to help. He watches the table while I shop, and carries the heavy stuff. So far, nothing has been taken that wasn't in the FREE pile.

Some time ago at an ARCI meet outside Peoria, a just-purchased (at the Dayton Hamvention ironically) copy of one of the books about Zenith (also just out at the time) walked away from my van that Sunday morning.

Gone! Vanished!

A friend who goes to some of the same radio meets and hamfests has noted the periodic theft of tubes, paper items and small parts over the years going back to the Seventies.

Does anyone feel just a little guilty about stealing someone else's stuff or is honesty and the Golden Rule just a figment of the past?

I was at a hamfest and a guy unloaded several boxes, then walked off to use the men's room or get a coffee or something. A well-known dealer of local PA hamfests, a real big talker, started rifling through the stuff without asking. Then made a BS excuse when the irate seller returned.

All kinds of petty people.

After reading all these posts it reminds me of what attending a hamfest in south Florida is like.

It's sad but this is the world we are in. I no longer take anything worth more than say $20 to hamfests. We have no antique radio shows in south Fl so hamfests are as close as I get to antique radios swaps. People steal and pilfer. I've come to accept it so I always bring someone with me, usually me wife. She's happy to see stuff go away and I'm happy to leave her at the table while I shop!

Sad to say that some even sellers do steal in a way. They steal a sale by way of misinformation that is not entirely honest. A couple of years ago at Kutztown I bought a Crossly 3 that turned out to have cobbled together tubes with pins cut to fit the tube bases. I suppose the old adage of buyer beware is applicable here but none the less it struck me as poor form to deal in this way.
Frank

Stealing goes on every week at our auction. We have a security cameras here and there but if a person hovers over a box of items its easy to palm the smaller things such as pocket transistors, powder horn, small tools and not be discovered. One night 62 items vanished. A test lot was set up on one table and checked when auction time started. A new security system was installed shortly after. Can't believe the things they try to get refunds, like substituting a ring with a phoney diamond in place of the original they purchased past auction.