WEBVTT - Stealing Superman: Episode Two – Four Empty Frames 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.760 In early two thousand, eBay was still a little bit 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.560 of a novelty. The auction site hadn't even introduced the 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.280 buy it Now feature four items. If you wanted something, 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.560 you had to wait days until bidding ended, and you 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.319 had to hope you had the highest offer. Sniping, or 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.760 the act of bidding at the last possible second, could rip. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.240 Some prized would be possession out of your grasp, especially 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.800 if someone had a broadband connection with blazing fast internet 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:43.120 speeds instead of you know, dial up. eBay was also 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:47.479 becoming a hot market for comic books. Before eBay, if 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.199 you wanted to buy a rare comic, you'd have to 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.760 go to an auction in person, or attend a comic 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.320 convention or by a trade publication and scan their list 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.200 of comics. Then may you and in order with a check. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:07.039 But Eva was changing all that. It was democratizing the 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.480 buying and selling of collectibles. That's important to know in 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:17.279 order to understand what happens next. As you'll recall, comic 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.800 book dealer Stephen Fishler got a frantic phone call from 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:26.240 Nicholas Cage, who explained his three most prized comic books, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:31.080 worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been stolen. Action 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.319 Comics number one, Detective Comics Number twenty seven, and the 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:41.039 lesser valued but still important Detective Comics Number one vanished 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.319 without trace from his house in a gated community in 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:50.080 bel Air. No leads, no suspects, just a despondent cage 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.160 staring at empty wall frames that had once housed the 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:59.960 debuts of Superman and Batman. Stephen, of course, was key 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.480 bring an eye on the collector's community, looking for any 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.000 sign of the stolen books coming onto the market. He 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.400 owned his own place, Metropolis Collectibles in New York, but 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:16.160 the chances of the thief strolling into his business were slim. Still, 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.440 Stephen kept looking. Hope was the only currency he had 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:25.600 at the moment, and look optimism is a defining Superman trait. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.359 One day, a collector showed Stephen one of his newer acquisitions. 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.480 It was a copy of Marvel Mystery Comics number seventy one, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:42.160 dated April. The original human Torch is flying through the air. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.799 A number of characters from ancient Egypt are shocked by 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.080 his appearance. His young side kick, Tora, who is also 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.839 on flare, is sacking someone in the gut. Another man 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.799 appears to be reviving Cleopatra from her sarcophagus, injecting her 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:04.080 with a strange serum. It's your typical Golden Age comic cover, 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.320 lots of disparate elements stitched together to compel a kid 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.200 to spend his one and only dime to see how 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.040 the hell any of this made sense These days. It's 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.720 a desirable comic, though not one of the most sought after. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.280 Some people chase it just because the cover is cool, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:32.120 A dynamic composition by Golden Age artist Alex Schomberg. What's 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.280 with the Egyptians? Well, it was just after World War 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.680 Two and comics needed new villains to employ. But something 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.760 else about it seemed strange to Stephen. Not just the 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:50.200 fact that to self immolating heroes were punching ancient Egyptians. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:55.520 Besides that, here's Stephen to explain. He showed it to me. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.880 It's a well known collector in New York, and I went, weird, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.760 you get this book? And then you said, I got 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.720 it from this woman, and I'm looking at it. I'm 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.920 looking at it. This is impossible. I sold this book. 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.440 How could Stephen possibly know that there were hundreds of 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.479 copies of Marvel Mysteries number seventy one out there that 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.320 had survived being thrown away by parents. But this one 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.960 was different. Inside on the first page was a handwritten 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.480 sequence of numbers and letters seven eight four one dash 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.239 D dash three to zero. It's an old comic book. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.360 Kids wrote or drew all kinds of things on them 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.440 before they realized. Some of them could put their kids 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:47.400 through college. But this isn't just a doodo. It's legendary 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.960 in the comic book collector's community because it means the 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.719 comic belonged to the d collection, one of the most 0:04:54.800 --> 0:05:00.880 comprehensive ever assembled. It's a pedigree like a fingerprint. The 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.320 person who bought this comic book and thousands of others 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.880 wrote a code on the first page of everyone he 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.080 bought as a teenager and young adult. There's only one 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:17.680 Marvel Mystery Comics number with those numbers inside, and it 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:22.520 once belonged to a collector. Stephen Fishler knew, well, this 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.080 was exactly a book that I had sold Nick that 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.520 somehow left his house. Someone hadn't stolen three comics from 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:41.440 Nicholas Cage. Someone had stolen four for I Heart Radio. 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:46.160 This is stealing Superman I'm your host, Danis Schwartz, and 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:56.640 this is episode two, four empty frames. As soon as 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.440 Stephen got a look at the Marvel Mystery, it was 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.640 his turn to call Cage and a near panic. It 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.800 was possible he was somehow mistaken that he misremembered selling 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.799 it to him, that maybe it wasn't the d copy 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:14.720 Cage had bought, but no Cage confirmed it. He had 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.440 had a Marvel Mystery and now it was gone somehow. 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.120 In the chaotic aftermath of the heist, he hadn't noticed 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.799 it missing. Everyone's attention had been on the Big Two, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.840 Action number one and Detective number twenty seven. No one 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.880 had noticed the weird Egypt meets Marvel comic had vanished too. 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.159 Nick had a run of Marvel Mystery and the only 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.560 Marvel Mystery missing from the house it was Marvel seventy one. 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.600 He had one through ninety two, I believe, but missing 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.640 the seventy one. And I said, well it was the 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.000 seventy one was taken out of the house. We're a book, 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.960 I went, that's it was a pedigree book with very 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.760 unique markings. It's the same book. So who was this 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.279 woman on eBay had sold the book to his collector friend. 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.680 eBay seller profiles usually have scant information. People can be 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.600 as anonymous as they like. For the most part, you 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:15.120 might buy something, even something worth thousands, and not have 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.120 any more information about the seller than that their screen 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:24.400 name is Biceps Due. There's just one exception. An eBay 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.560 profile usually offers up the user's city and state. The seller, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.120 the one with cages book was in Connecticut and obviously 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.120 connected it to the theft. There's no way if I 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.160 sold in this book that a woman in Connecticut would 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.400 have ended up with. But that's how it happened. So 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.920 that was the only lead that I had. Somehow, in 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.920 the span of just a couple of months, this book 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.720 had been taken from cages home and been delivered miles 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:59.600 away and then wound up on eBay. A few fouls 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.400 it a monumental book on its own, but it just 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.280 was a book that I told them. There was just 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.640 one thing to do. He asked the buyer for more 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.760 information about the seller, and so he gave me the 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.720 person who got it from and that's how that we began. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.760 This isn't as strange as it sounds. The rare comics 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:26.960 collecting community is small Plenty of people buy and read comics, sure, 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.000 but not that many deal in rare, high priced books 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:35.160 from the nineteen forties. Stephen is among the most well 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.680 known dealers of such paper treasures. The collector was from 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.160 New York, where Stephen lived. They had done business before, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.720 so the comic finding its way to Stephen wasn't far fetched. 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.320 Most desirable comics made their way to him eventually, and 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.319 the man, whom Stephen prefers not to name, trusted him, 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.640 and so he told him that the seller was a she, 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.600 a woman named Kimberly. He gave Stephen a phone number 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:08.560 and an email, so Stephen began dialing, wondering if the 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.320 person who would pick up the phone knew that the 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.400 comics she had sold had been taken from the home 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:20.160 of Nicholas Cage. I had contacted the woman asking how 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.679 she got it, and she was very worried and defensive. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.679 Kimberly did not wish to discuss where her Marvel Mystery 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.840 number seventy one had come from. Stephen kept trying left 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.920 her phone messages but got no response. Maybe she was 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.600 just unsettled by the question, maybe she had no idea 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:44.360 it was stolen. But then the buyer told Stephen another detail, 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.479 a detail that didn't do anything to convince him. Kimberly 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.320 was an innocent bystander. He had bought the comic in person, 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:59.600 an in person swap money for the Marvel Mystery. This 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.400 is the kind of thing people may do on Craigslist, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:07.560 but on eBay, even back then, it was unusual. The 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.920 whole point of eBay was to find items you couldn't 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:15.600 find locally, and with relative anonymity, you could purchase them 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.320 safely without risk of being lured into someone's basement. But 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:25.400 Kimberly preferred a personal meeting, and the collector didn't mind. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.720 Connecticut was a short drive. He had no idea the 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:35.520 comic was well questionable, and no idea why Kimberly wanted 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.880 to keep it offline. A cash transaction didn't leave much 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.480 of a paper trail. If Kimberly didn't know the comic 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:48.160 was hot, why insist on meeting up in person? Why 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:53.640 the Cloak and Dagger stuff? Stephen pondered, whoever took the 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.079 Marvel Mystery had taken the other books, the very rare, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.640 very valuable com x. It stood to reason Kimberly probably 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.959 knew something about the others. So he sat down and 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.680 began typing another message. This one was more to the point. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.400 I sent a letter quietly to this woman who somehow 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.000 had one of the other stolen books, the Marvel seventy one. 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.280 Sent her a letter and I said, you know you 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.120 might have gotten books. This is my only lead. I said, 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.800 you may have been in possession of books that could 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.600 be stolen, But the owner really just wants to get 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.080 his book back. So I said, here's a picture of 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.439 a book that was stolen. If you have this book, 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.520 I will give you ten thousand dollars. There's no questions, 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.560 asked finders a reward for returning this book, Thinking you 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:49.000 know she got this cheaper book, Stephen was essentially offering 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.600 her a finder's fee if she could procure the real treasure, 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.080 the action number one or the detective number twenty seven 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:02.120 or both. He mailed the letter and wait did And 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:06.440 while he waited, he thought about something else, something else 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.480 that was strange about seeing this comic on eBay. When 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:15.000 it disappeared from Cages House. It had been raw. That's 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.160 what collectors called a book that hadn't been graded by 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.240 a third party company, hadn't been assessed for its condition, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:27.040 for blemishes, for an objective ten point rating of how 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.800 well it aged, since it was first on the stands 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:35.360 in the system. All changed in two thousand when what's 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.679 now called the Certified Guarantee Company or c g C 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:45.240 started looking at comics. For a fee of roughly twenty dollars. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.400 C g C would take your rare comic, examine it, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.679 and put it in a protective plastic case so it 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.400 would be forever sealed against further wear. It solved the 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.240 problem of a dealer and buyer having different ideas of 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.400 what a comics condition was. It was perfect for eBay 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.599 when you had to buy items site unseen. C g 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.920 C really took off in the early two thousand's mostly 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.360 because of eBay. That's Paul Lytch primary grater for c 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:21.679 g C. Back then he was the secondary greater. So 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:26.559 what CDC really did. It really gave buyers the level 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:31.160 playing field to say, no, c g C, this third party, independent, 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.880 impartial company gave this book that you're selling me an 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.040 eight five, so I'm only going to pay the eight 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.000 five price. C g C could make sure a comic 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.679 was unrestored, hadn't been messed with and they graded down 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.000 to the tenth of a point, from point five to 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.760 nine point two to rarely a ten point Oh, this 0:13:54.840 --> 0:14:00.840 Marvel Mystery scored very very high, a nine point four, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:06.640 close to perfect. Once a book is slabbed, it's protected 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.360 against a lot of things that age old comics which 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.679 were never printed to last, Cheap ink and cheap paper degrade. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.480 So with the micro chamber paper in there, it will 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.240 help aging of the book and it will help it 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.320 with environmental storage problems that may happen down the road 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.160 depending on how you store your comics. So that comic 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.960 is then placed into an inner well. In the inner 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.800 well we have many, many different sizes that are custom 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.440 made for comics. That inner well is sealed on all 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.000 the edges and then it is placed in the outer 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.560 acrylic folder, which is just an acrylic plastic, very sturdy, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.040 and that is sonically sealed and welded shut. And so 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.160 you have a tamper evidence very what's the word. I'm 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.920 looking for safe way to store your comics and archipe 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.640 a nice archival way to protect your comics and protect 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.080 them from any kind of other damage that could happen 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.680 just with life. So someone had thoughtfully taken Cage's stolen 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.920 comic and decided it deserved archival protection, at which point 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.160 it was sent to c g C for grading before 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:26.520 being auctioned on eBay. Someone wanted to squeeze every last 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.400 dollar out of its value, which was contrary to most 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.040 stolen goods, where getting a fraction of an item's worth 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:39.880 is usually good enough. This was well bold. Imagine swiping 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.320 a painting from a wall and then going to get 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.600 it appraised in the hopes word hadn't yet reached the 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.920 expert about the art going missing, or going to a 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.440 framing store with a swiped van go to pick out 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.680 the perfect frame for your wall. Kimberly either didn't know 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.720 it had been stolen, or knew but figured it was 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.800 one of many Marvel Mystery comics. She didn't seem to 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.800 have any idea it was a D copy, one instantly 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:16.440 recognizable someone had slipped it. Suggested that the thief knew 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.480 enough about comics to grab the most valuable ones, but 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.200 wasn't that much of an insider to know about the 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:29.720 D collection. It revealed something else too. The comics were 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:34.200 taken from Cage's home just days before c g C 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:40.800 officially opened for business just days c g C began 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.280 accepting submissions from the public on January first, two thousand. 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.840 It's possible that whoever took Cage's comics wanted to get 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:57.320 ahead of c g C, ahead of Cage, possibly submitting 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.120 his valuable books to be slabbed and therefore making them 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.640 harder to steal. Each slabbed c g C comic carries 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.520 a certification number. There would be no way of reselling 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.280 it in its c g C case without someone realizing 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.960 it had been stolen. Someone would have to take it out, 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.000 crack the slab, make it a raw book again. It 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.080 would be harder. Whoever took the comics may have been 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.960 knowledgeable enough to know that if they waited any longer, 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.159 the comics might be off to c g C for submission. 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:39.280 Than in case and trackable, we have helped our chatboards. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.159 Dealers have listed books and the serial numbers and the 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.560 grades that have been stolen from their shops, and our 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.880 comic book community has helped find them. And it has helped, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.119 but unfortunately still some tests do happen. But it also 0:17:55.240 --> 0:18:00.240 presented another avenue for Stephen to explore. Anyone submit to 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.560 c g C had to provide a name and return 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.280 address to get their comic book back from their office 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.920 in New Jersey unless they submitted it through a participating dealer. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.560 So Stephen reached out to a contact at c g 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:19.639 C to see if he could learn anything else. In fact, 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.040 Stephen had actually helped get c g C off the ground, 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.480 helping map out what the ten point grading system should 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:31.840 look like, and he discovered something very interesting about Kimberly. 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.119 She apparently called c g C and said, the c 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.760 g C g about personal information about who it's a grade. 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.680 It's something about that. Whole situation looked pretty bad. Kimberly 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.720 from Connecticut was definitely getting worried. She didn't know Stephen 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.760 had already gotten her information from the buyer. C g C, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.240 for the record, didn't provide any further details about Kimberly 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.119 to Stephen, but what they had done was confirmed what 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.399 he already knew to be true that the comic he 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:08.000 sold Cage was undoubtedly part of the d collection. If 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.560 Stephen had any doubt before c g C provided authentication, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.840 they always noted a comics pedigree on their label. Kimberly 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.840 had taken steps to guarantee that it was Cages comic 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:26.840 beyond all doubt. So out of those four comics, why 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:32.440 had this one, the least valuable, least important, come up first. 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.880 Why wouldn't the person who grabbed it from Cage's home 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.240 try to cash in on the action number one for 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.359 two hundred thousand dollars? Why not in case that one 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.440 in a C G C slab and shoot for the stars. 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.960 It's a marvel mystery mystery. So we asked someone who 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:56.080 might know. We asked an art thief. Well, what did 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.120 she want? Attitude is I never give anyone the benefit 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.320 of the doubt, and God everyone is despicable as each other. 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.000 And if you go into these things with that attitude, 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:24.119 you normally can't go far wrong. Okay, so let's be clear. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:30.480 We asked a reformed art thief, a man named Paul Hendry. 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.760 Paul is from the UK, and for years he made 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:38.000 a dishonest living as a knocker. That's a person who 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.000 would find reasons to get inside someone's house and assess 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.399 their belongings for anything worth stealing. If he found something good, 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.359 he'd rope in some co conspirators, the people doing the 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:55.320 actual liberation of the goods. Well, yes, I was born 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.359 in Brighton on the South Coach of the UK in 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.159 nine and was adopted. And then when I was twelve, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:04.080 I went out on the knocker, which is something where 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.800 you knock on people's heals you try to buy antiques. 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.760 I moved swiftly up the food chain and started organizing 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.920 thefts from country houses, and then I became very, very 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.840 successful in the nineteen eighties, and then I gave up 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.639 the business early nineties when my son was born, and 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.359 I went to university and got a BA honors degree 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.360 in American Social Studies and a master's degree in contemporary history. 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.600 And I now commentate on art related crime because I've 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:35.440 seen it from both perspectives. Paul has helped the FBI, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:41.360 foreign Law Enforcement, and local bureaus find and recover stolen artworks. 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:45.160 He's well versed in what happens when someone steals one 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.160 of a kind pieces and then tries to figure out 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.080 what to do with them. Well, yes, people call me 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.200 the art crime on Bardsman. So really, when I see 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.240 wrong doing, whoever's doing it, whether it's law enforcement, the 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:02.639 insurance industry, private art detect chie's themes handless whoever, I 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.280 call everyone out. So to be honest with you, I 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.880 upset everyone at some point each time, and the fact 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.919 that the Marvel Mystery, the least valuable comic in the bunch, 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.520 was the first to surface, doesn't surprise him one bit. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.520 Like obviously the person put it on eBay testing the water. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.600 It's a test balloon scene whether it can slip through 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:29.120 the market without coming on top without being discovered. Remember, 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.320 two of the four comics were the two rarest The 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:37.680 other two the Marvel Mystery and the Detective Number one, weren't. 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.440 The Action Number One was worth at least two hundred 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:48.040 thousand dollars, the Marvel Mystery about a thousand dollars. To 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.520 be honest with you, because of the large discrepancies in value, 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.760 I will be leaning towards they took those to use 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.199 a test balloons and the proof of putting in that is, 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.680 the first comic that surfaced in Connecticut was the lesser 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.119 valued one, right, So I would actually look towards that 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.880 as Yes, they took one very valuable one and one 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.480 less valuable one, one very valuable one, one less valuable 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.119 one to use as bargaining chips as a test balloon. 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.920 If the Marvel Mystery had gone undetected. It was entirely 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:24.320 possible that the more valuable comics would have surfaced soon 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.760 after the Action number one and detective number twenty seven. 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:33.360 Maybe they'd be in shiny new c g C slabs 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:37.600 ready to be framed or displayed. Maybe they already were 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.520 c g C. After all, couldn't possibly be suspicious of 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.680 every comic that was submitted to them, or treat the 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.920 submitter as though they were a thief. But the Marvel 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:54.320 Mystery did not go undetected. Stephen detected it. This was 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:59.360 a real lead, tangible, verifiable proof that at least one 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.600 of the comic was out there, and proof that the 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.959 comics weren't taken as a prank or had some home 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.639 been misplaced. Whoever had taken the comics had not done 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.040 so for their own personal pleasure to have some kind 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:18.040 of illicit comic book collection for their eyes only. The 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:26.840 Marvel Mystery was put up for sale for money. You 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.600 have to remember art, be a comic, a painting, a sculpture, 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:33.639 or anything. He's just a commodity, and that they steal 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:37.320 them because they pan and then they try to monetize them. Now, 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:41.879 comics are like say, musical instruments, they're quite unique and 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:45.440 knee market for them, and collectors market is a very 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:49.240 very small market. The majority of art crime is against 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:53.359 personal householders where they have art and antique stolen with 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:56.720 values ranging from say a thousand dollars up to ten 0:24:56.800 --> 0:25:00.400 tho dollars and maybe a hundred thousand dollars, and those 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:04.320 things happened every day of the week all over the world. 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:07.200 Every now and again you get a big heist from 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:11.200 a museum where paintings worth millions and tens and hundreds 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:15.400 of millions of dollars stolen and then either ransom back 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:19.639 to the insurance company or victims, or they're held as 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:23.359 collateral and used within the underworld in drug deals because 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:25.760 the moving of money around the world is much more 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:29.840 difficult because of money laundering laws. So these comics, including 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.840 the Superman ones and all of them, are just a commodity. 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:35.679 If you put it in a safety deposit box, you 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:37.760 can give the person that you're going to borrow some 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:40.600 money off, or you're going to get some narcotics off. 0:25:40.680 --> 0:25:43.040 You give them the key to the ux and access 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:45.440 to it as collateral, and then when you sell the 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.640 drugs to pay the money back, you can then get 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:53.240 the access back again when the cage books went missing. 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:56.840 When any art goes missing, there's always a question of 0:25:56.880 --> 0:26:00.040 whether it was an impulsive crime, something done at a 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:04.080 spur of the moment, or something premeditated. And if it 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:08.400 were premeditated, whether the thief knew exactly where the comics 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:11.800 were going to go, whether they had a buyer already 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:15.440 lined up. If not, how else could one of them 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:19.280 get from Los Angeles to Connecticut so quickly. If this 0:26:19.440 --> 0:26:22.600 would a carefully playing theath, then the people would have 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:24.920 eva had someone that they were going to sell them 0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:28.240 too straightaway already sold it out, or they would at 0:26:28.320 --> 0:26:30.879 least know where they were going to monetize them or 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:33.920 what they were going to do with them afterwards. Bob 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:37.760 Whitman x FBI Art Crime Team Boss, he's got a 0:26:37.800 --> 0:26:40.120 good saying, you know, aren't Thieves are very good at 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:43.680 steam in art, but they're terrible businessmen and terrible at 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.640 trying to monetize the art once they've stolen it. Were 0:26:47.680 --> 0:26:52.359 it not for that infernal decollection marking, the Marvel Mysteries 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:56.840 could have passed unnoticed. Comics have the benefit of being 0:26:56.880 --> 0:27:01.159 printed in multiples. Most art is one of one and 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:05.040 therefore much harder to return to a legitimate market. Well, 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:08.320 a lot of art theft, you see, is opportunisty or 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:10.760 even those that are planning right, they put a lot 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:14.199 of planning into the actual ceiling of the artwork, but 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:16.280 not so much planning there's what they're going to do 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:18.840 with them once they've stolen them, and then they find 0:27:18.880 --> 0:27:21.000 that it's even in the art world, it's a very 0:27:21.080 --> 0:27:24.399 very exclusive club and it's very very difficult if you 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:27.080 don't know the right context to know what to do 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:29.760 with these things, unless, of coursehip was something like, I 0:27:29.760 --> 0:27:32.000 mean there's a gang in the UK. Then they raised 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:36.800