my phone took a crash email is find i thankyou for the considerations gary

Since there is so much doubt in your mind about whether or not they actually belonged to him just get them back to me. Problem solved.

thank you for being honorable and taking them back when and were?

Someone???,

needs to work out a deal with the insurance company that paid out, if they still exist ?...

The kit needs to be owned, ( and preferably played ), by a "legitimate" new owner...

And Jaghog I feel for you big time..

You have done nothing but the right thing.. do your "Bloody" best to keep the kit..

Cheers & good luck..

is it possible that the drums were recovered by the authorities at some point and then sold legally if the insurance company paid out on the theft originally? This happens here. Police and insurance companies auction off recovered stolen goods at public auctions. I have bought several items

In a stolen and recovery,the insurance company,who paid the original claim ,owns the drums outright.The original owner,relinquishes all rights to them,in accepting the insurance money.The insurance company can do whatever they want with them,as the new legal owner.

If they are unclaimed property ,in police custody,they can be auctioned off after a certain amount of time,if no one comes foward to claim them.

If someone is just holding on the them,and they are stolen property,that person is subject to arrest and prosecution.Reguardless is the insurance company paid a claim or not.The person illegally possessing them,is doing so illegally .

Steve B

But 30 years down the track, how would you know if it was legit or not? There would have been a receipt from the auction company but that is unlikely to still be available and in the case where the kit might've been bought cheap at auction and then on-sold it's unlikely the seller would hand over the auction receipt with his purchase price listed.

Whilst there might be records buried somewhere showing the kit was stolen and not recovered I would think it would be very difficult to get that info as a buyer or a seller. In this case, the original owner got an insurance pay out so he is sorted regardless of whether the insurance company recovered the kit or not. So unless the police or insurance company are willing to trawl through their records to establish its status I think it would be fair to assume it was legitimately sold having been recovered.

A couple questions ...

In this situation, how would someone go about tracking down an insurance company that might have held the claim? I would also guess a police department never posessed these drums, based on what was found in one of the trap cases. Mind Blowi

If and when the seller receives the drums back, will or should he need to turn them over to local police? If it happened in Cleveland, a report still might be on file with CPD. Until this whole situation is cleared up, the drums will never be sold to anyone within the vintage drum community at the price they are really worth.

Why did the seller wait to disclose the history of the drums to the buyer after the sale and on a public forum via a thread reply? It surprises me that these back stories were not brought up earlier.

-Tim

All good questions thornbeck,

It would also be interesting to know what that payout figure was back then, I'll bet it was miniscule compared to the "collectors" current value.. If it was possible to follow back the paperwork trail, I reckon the Insurer could be open to some type of deal given the time frame.. even maybe a waver

after all.. it's only a really old kit of drums right ? ;)

Cheers

I missed what was in the traps case as this story seems to be across so many threads. I can guess though. If the Police can't or are unwilling to dig up the paper work then this cannot be resolved which is why I say it should be assumed that it's now legit and everyone can move on. Like Longjohn said earlier, the drums need to be played.

I wonder how many kits amongst the forum members' collections have been stolen and not recovered in their long lives? Probably plenty as instruments have long been easy pickings for thieves targeting touring bands and clubs etc. I remember our guitarist having her beautiful Maton electric swiped from the backstage area of a Sydney venue in the 90s. We were devastated and could only afford a Samick as a replacement (no insurance). Still, I'd rather the guitar was being played today (by someone oblivious to it's past obviously) than trashed or sold off as parts.