Thieves at Newark autojumble. - A Warning

I know quite a few of you guys attend Newark autojumble regularly so I thought I would make you all aware of an incident last Sunday.

I was there Sunday as always with my Dad who sometimes holds a stall to offload some of his tat. Towards the end of the day we were chatting and I was taking the micky out of him for having holes in his pockets, this was after a pen fell out. I didn't think much of it at the time but I have just learned that it wasn't a hole at all but rather a very neatly cut slit the full length of the cargo style pocket on his trouser leg. It's obvious that this was an attempt to steal his end of day earnings rather than some kind of accidental tear. Luckily the thieving scum were unsuccessful and only made away with a shopping list written on a piece of note paper.

I just wanted to share this so that no one else becomes victim.

That's a new method on me, but theft at autojumbles has been a problem for many years, I used to do some machining work for a coachbuilder and got invited to help man his stand at Beaulieu Autojumble about ten years ago. There were a group going round using distraction arguing over the price of a relatively low price item whilst another member swiped something of value. Always chose a time when there was only one stallholder present, or it was particularly busy. After losing a chronometric speedo and a expensive magneto in one day my friend stopped attending altogether. There were similar reports from other stallholders on the same occasion. Such a shame as it was a nice sociable event we all enjoyed attending. Last time I went to an autojumble it was noticeable that more of the traders had items of value in display cases or out of reach behind them. another case of the few spoiling things for the decent many.

A disturbing thing to happen to your dad, to actually have your clothing cut in an attempt to steal from you. I can imagine it's quite a shock.

Sadly that is not a new MO. I have not witnessed it but have heard of people's hand bags and bags being slashed and the scroats running off with whatever falls out.

Not necessarily at Auto-jumbles.

That's similar to the way tourists have been robbed from rucksacks in crowded streets or airport areas.

A friend and I once spotted a case of shop-lifting from one of the book stalls at a major model-engineering exhibition. The man was apparently looking through sone books all very innocently, until at some point he simply turned and walked calmly away. He'd picked his moment, when the nearest seller was attending to a customer, but not noticed we'd seen him. We immediately alerted the staff, and pointed him out to them, but I don't know if they successfully recovered the book.

Mobile phone type cameras?

It's not just valuable stuff that gets stolen at autojumbles. I used to share a stall with my brothers at the Spring and September events.

When I had boxes of taps and dies for sale (duplicates of a very large lot I had bought previously) I reckon about 50% of these were taken without payment. These weren't valuable items; I had already binned any that were damaged and IIRC, was charging £1 each for HSS taps and 50P for the carbon ones.

This, and other thefts from our stall left a really bad taste for me, and is one of the reasons I now attend these events as a buyer and not a seller.

I have helped at exhibitions, only I was sited on the customer side where I could watch without being noticed.

'Cut-purse' is a term as old as the hills, this is the MO to which it refers.

Sad that other old manual skills are dying out and this one's still going strong...

Exactly. A colleague at work had a similar attempt made on her handbag in a Redditch car park over 20 years ago. She wasn't aware of the cut till much later. The bloke got a packet of Polos, but failed to release her purse.