I'm stupid. You're stupid. We're all stupid, just some put more effort into it, some make it a career.

Ah, what a fine way to start a new year; call everybody stupid. The truth can be painful.

With the holiday season just over, I wonder how many of us were just that - stupid. It feels good to brag, to make your friends envious of the things you have, or if nothing else just to show off . A quick posting to any of the social media sites and then sit back and feel pretty smug about yourself. Looky what I got and you ain't.

Just about everybody has done it, each and every one of us, not just once but time and time again. We think nothing of it and for the most part we get away with it. A moment of happiness that we want to share with our friends and family. But it has become a practice that needs to be tempered with caution. Not so much who YOU tell, but who else is listening - or who your friends share the information with - that is the problem.

All my fault. I knew better and this time the odds caught up with me. Pure and simple carelessness on my part. A brief unguarded moment at the morning coffee shop and a casual comment on Icon. What could I have done that was so unforgiving ? Well, nothing really. Nothing different from what a million people before me have done. I merely mentioned we were going away for about a week, to visit with some old friends and hunt an abandoned railway line a thousand miles away. We hadn't been able to do a road trip for close to 20 years and we were both really looking forward to it. I tell ya, the anticipation while we waited for departure day was intense.

Someone, sometime, I don't know who and I don't know exactly when. I can only assume it was when we were both away and someone was so comfortable with that knowledge that they spent the necessary time to sort through numerous boxes of insulators -there were too many just to take them all, that I had stored outside in a shed. They took the crates they wanted and spent the necessary time and effort to restack the ones left behind so the theft was not immediately obvious. I used to collect (hoard) common insulators for display projects. I generally sorted boxes by manf. and CD. A box would be full of say aqua Hemi 42's. Another box would be CD 145 GNW and so on. Generally these insulators had little to no value. Damaged pieces were packed next to mint in the same box. There may have been a treasure or two mixed in, an embossing error or a scarce shade of some colour. Some prick spent the time to check each box and took every boxful that contained Canadian glass. They did not take any porcelain. The highlight, I'm sure, was a half box of heavy amber CD 145 B's. If the average was 40 insulators in a box, I would guess somewhere between 600 -750 pieces by the number of boxes taken. All they left behind was a part box of CD 143's.

Other items scattered around the property were taken as well, another indication the culprits were not in a hurry.

We had video surveillance and he/she/they/ or it, would have been on record. Had I noticed the theft before the tape was recorded over I would now have his balls mounted on the trophy wall. (This original 1985 VHS security system cost in excess of $4,000 - at that time new cars could be purchased for less than $10,000. Only a few years later, new digital technology with many more bells and whistles, was available at a fraction of that price. ) Soon after this theft, we upgraded to a system that I believed had all the bases covered. Unfortunately and to our greatest dismay, after our next theft a few years later, we found out that no matter how prepared you think you are, there is always the unknown, waiting in your ignorance to give you that little bit of unsolicited education that you so desperately did not want.

Years ago, before social media became the monster it is today, I read that in 86% of crimes committed, the parties involved had some connection. Today, I would expect that you could raise that connection to 95% or higher. In this case, I find it highly unlikely that someone of evil intentions just happened by at the most opportune time and seized the moment. My guess, is someone sitting at another table in the morning coffee shop overheard. Everybody knows everybody. If you didn't already know, it would be easy enough to casually find out where anybody lived. But sorting the boxes for just Canadian, certainly does point a dirty finger to a knowledgeable collector type.

For those of you who post such things on social media, all I can say is, shut up, smarten up, and good luck. Since this happened, I have read several stories in the paper that prove that I am not alone, it is in fact of epidemic proportions. So commonplace is it, that only the most outrageous become stories. Christmas or maybe a birthday gift you're really excited about. You post it then a few months later, maybe even a year or two, you announce that dream vacation you've always wanted. You should not be surprised to find your place has been robbed and guess what, that item you cherished so much is now gone. Stories like that one don't make the news anymore. This is my all time favourite from a few years ago. That car in your garage that you have been working on for seven years. Regular updates to a social media account . Finally, nearly ready for the test drive you post a picture of it in all it's sparkling splendor sitting in the driveway. A short time later a surprise arrives in the mail. Tickets to a Red Sox game, enough for the whole family. You are a big fan, you've posted that fact many times. The tickets are for the best seats available and sent to you as a random winner of a draw held by the local hardware store. You enjoy the game, even posting smiley face family fotos to your account as the game progresses. Your new digital camera that you took the car picture with has a new feature you were not aware of- your GPS coordinates were embedded in it. That shiny car you have lovingly restored and is now ready to go, is now gone. The hardware store has no idea what you're blabbering about. You had not yet plated the car, and now is when you find out house insurance does not cover vehicles.

Just my imagination working overtime you say?

Perhaps one more story will make you a believer. Suppose you have a well publicized high end collection. Over the years you have written numerous articles, hosted many shows, given interviews a few times to collector publications, newspapers and TV. You have become a very well known collector. Several thousand collectors in 50 states and across Canada if not the world, know you by name. One day you receive an invite to go check out an interesting collection for sale some distance away. Not an unusual offer, just one of many you have accepted over the years. You return empty handed only to find your collection gone. A fantasy? Ask Ron Yuhas for the rest of the details.

I was careless and I paid for it. For me, it was a very cheap life lesson. Angry as hell that I have to pay thousands just to have peace of mind. The house I grew up in is not far from here. We had no locks on any of the doors and for 50 years never had any problems. Our new video monitoring system is 24/7 - even with that in place when I am outside cutting grass, all the doors are locked.

People buy a lottery ticket in the hope of a quick financial windfall. Cybercriminals browse social media sites with the same expectation.

I do feel that this event was the determining factor for why I started collecting suspensions. Two thoughts; one - they are big and heavy things which do require considerable effort to move any number with any speed, and two - they have a small resale market making them harder to sell unnoticed. Also, in my collection I do not have anything that would fetch a big price .

An angry moment from long ago, I have not mentioned this to more than three people since. Friends whom I trust, asking them to just keep an ear open and say nothing about it. As much as I wish it, there have been no leads. At one point there was talk that a local collector had scored big on mostly CD 143's at a nearby auction. Thinking this might just be a cover story in advance to selling a bunch of ill gotten gains, I wasted no time in confirming the purchase through another collector.

Numerous Hunts over many years with lots of good memories that can't be stolen. Lots of time, considerable effort and no small expense to gather so many insulators, with a big Fail going to the prick who stole them from me after I stole them from the railway. [id=589293437;next episode]