Crooks and Collections! Do you collect?

 Photo from the Past:

 An actual shot of the Loomis/FArgo Heist

That man shown is assisting in stealing 17+ Million $$$

So for today:

I collected marbles. I loved to crawl around a dirt ring and shoot marbles. We drew a circle about 2 or 3feet across, usually it was 3 or 4 players. We would decide how many marbles we would put in the center, ten’es was good placing either 30 or 40 marbles in the center.  We played for ‘keepers’ even thought my mama said that was gambling and I could not do that, but of course the boy in me did.

Late 1940, Sister Shirley and I went into Great Grandpa Hilly’s old law office. He was some kind of Judge out in the country near Toccoa Georgia. The old law books were there, but what I spotted were old letters. I even saw an ‘airmail’ stamp; I collected as many as I could get off the envelopes.

That was the start of my collection. Mama had some letters from Germany, from a missionary, Herman Lauster. They were a prize. By the time I was 17 I had hundreds of stamps, Some I knew were worth thousands maybe millions.  LOL

I held onto that collection until after the late 1960s. WE bought our first home. $3000. A friend rented our trailer out for us, until we moved it to Norfolk.

 Later,  I enlisted in the USN. On a ship out of Norfolk. with 5000+ men and officers

 

USS Independence CVA 62, I slept just under that angle deck  coming right toward you! Yep it was noisy when launching planes, LOL

 We moved our trailer to Norfolk and rented the house out. Just knowing no one would bother our stuff, I stored some things I had bought in different countries and my stamp collection, along with the first robot I had ever built, in the attic.  I was wrong. MOST was stolen.

Not only that, the renters later became infamous. We rented the house for $40 a month. The renter, Mrs Ghantt, got $400 behind on the rent. LOL I was stationed in GITMO by then and  Sherry handled the eviction.

 As the police sat their stuff on the road; Sherry was threatened by mama Ghantt. Finally, they were gone. Later one son, David Ghantt, was the mastermind of the largest bank robbery ever recorded. The Loomis Fargo Heist out of Charlotte, NC, over 17 million dollars, 11 million in $20 bills, easy to pass.
He was arrested a couple years later; he, wife and mama went to prison. Mama was found guilty of helping launder money.

He is the sucker that stole my million-dollar stamp collection. LOL  He is out of prison now, maybe I should find him to see if he still has it.  LOL

Nite Shipslog

PS.

 Thank all of you that read here. I enjoy comments and appreciate it as I read them. Y’all are the BEST!  It is great to have friends!  Honest I did not make this stuff up!  LOL