Stamp Thief Arrested in Chicago

"When she discovered her late father's lifelong stamp collection had been stolen from her Park Ridge condominium's storage locker, Cindy resolved to get the collection back. And she did," writes Jennifer Johnson on Illinois' Herald Advocate website.

According to Jennifer, "Unhappy with what she viewed as a less-than-enthusiastic response from the Park Ridge police officer who took the initial theft report, Cindy, who asked that her last name not be used, took it upon herself to catch the thief, especially when another police officer told her investigators had little to go on."

The daughter is quoted as saying, "No one is taking my dad's stamps, no way.My dad had been collecting stamps for 60, 70 years. All these stamps were in there and they took every last one of them."

According to the article, "After reporting the theft to police, Cindy retrieved samples of her father's stamp collection which had been stored elsewhere and brought them to Stamp King, a store dedicated to the sale of collectible stamps on Chicago's Northwest Side.

It went on to say, "Cindy's hope was that whomever had her father's stamps would try to sell them to the store, and because her father's collection was uniquely categorized, the stolen stamps would be easily identified based on the samples she had shared."

Cindy's theory was correct. Three days after she discovered the stamps stolen, a man went to the stamp store with a portion of her father's collection, trying to make a sale.

The man, who presented identification to the clerk in order to make the sale, was told to come back the following day when an offer would be available for him. When he returned, Cindy had already identified the stamps he was trying to sell as belonging her father's collection and police were waiting at the shop to take him into custody.

The man, 26, was arrested and charged with possession of stolen property. The stolen stamp collection had an estimated value of $900.

This wasn't the first time stolen merchandise was recovered after it found its way to Stamp King.

In 2006, the shop made headlines around the world after a very rare -- and very valuable -- 1869 Lincoln stamp and envelope (The Ice House Cover) that had been stolen 40 years earlier from a private collection in Indiana was brought to the store.

To read the entie article, click here.