On the 26-27th of May, Wagner emailed me about an SS Officer's Degen and M36 Chain dagger that he purchased out of the classifieds on GDC. He wanted me to look at the photos and give him my evaluation on the pieces. I emailed him that I was familiar with the degen as the owner had once listed it on eBay and the auction ended without reaching the sellers reserve. At another date, another GDC member posted the same degen on this site asking for assistance from the members as he was trying to buy the same degen. You can find these 2 topic and see the same photos of the sword in both threads. In one the sword was listed on eBay and the other where a GDC member was asking collectors to help him out, since he was interested in a private purchase of the same piece.
On or about the 21st of June, Christine Murphy contacted me in reference to see if I wanted to buy an SS officers degen and M36 chain dagger. After looking as a couple of fuzzy email photos, I was convinced that they in fact were the same 2 items stolen on 26th of May, and in fact the 2 edged weapons that Wagner had purchased on the classifieds but were stolen at FED-EX/ Kinko's, in NC.
I contacted the owner of the items, Lee Schwilm, to find out what the status of the investigation and his claim was on the 2 SS pieces. He explained that FED-EX had not settled the claim and that a police report had been filed. At that time I informed him that I had a lead on the stolen items. While Christine didn't physically have the dagger and sword in hand to make a positive identification, the thief promised to send the items to her to see if she wanted to buy them. This went on for a couple of weeks without the items ever showing up. Then on July 12th Christine called me to say that the thief mailed her the dagger and the sword, and that she was able to make a positive ID on both pieces from the pictures that I had emailed her that were posted on the GDC forum.
At that time I put Lee Schwilm and Christine in contact with each other to work out the details of the return of $13K worth of stolen SS edged weapons. I believe the items were returned to Mr. Schwilm on July 17th. He paid Christine for the shipping and said thanks for the help, and that was it. To this date the thief has not even been processed and still continues to harass Christine on his stolen items and or payment for them, since he sent the dagger and sword to her without any front money.
Without my identifying the items as being stolen property in the 1st place, and Christine's help in obtaining the stolen goods, this recovery most likely would never had happened. But seeing how the items were insured for $13K through Fed-Ex and that Mr. L. Schwilm is an attorney himself, the money most definitely was a sure thing regardless of the items ever being recovered. Mr. Schwilm has told Christine that if he recoups any "pain & suffering" money from Fed-Ex, that he will see that she gets at least something out of it.
$13K in returned stolen items get recovered and sent back to the owner of those pieces, and he sends out a couple of emails with a thank you note?? Not that I should expect anything more.............. but I was a little surprised to say the least.
