Robbed Of All My Coins

Nope, insurance won't cover it

Police said they can't do anything. I contacted a local coin shop but there are about 100 or more pawn shops around here. No chance of getting them back I am sure.

If they wont do their job, then by all means, I feel you have every right to do whatever you feel is just to them when you find them. They might even be crazy enough to sell them back to you.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your collection.

Terrible, and I'm very sorry to hear about it.

Almost exactly the same thing happened to me about 25 years ago when I lived in Los Angeles; I lost about the same number of Morgans + Peace + Susies. At the time I had a roommate, who had friends, and I also allowed a co-worker who was moving to sleep in the spare bedroom for about a week, and he had a son who had friends ... Unfortunately, it could have been a month or more before I discovered the theft, and by then it was way too late to even think about reporting it. The older dollars had been give to me by my grandmother, who had taken them out of circulation in Wyoming.

All I have left are high-res photos of them, or at least negatives. I always wondered if they could be tracked down via the photos, but my experience with the judicial system is that unless you catch someone red-handed, nothing will happen to the perp. A few years ago my garage was broken into, and I managed to track down several items at a flea market down the street. Now, get this: I called the police and told them the name of the person who had sold the items to the flea market (at least they keep a record). When they paid this gent a visit, they found more items in his home ... and because his story was that he had "found them in the alley", that was the end of it, although I at least did get some of the stuff back. Oh, and this fellow was not a first-time offender, either ...

I am very sorry for your loss. That would break my heart. I haven't had quite that kind of experience, but a couple years ago I had some of my coins on a shelf in my living room, just the ones that were mint sets or commemoratives that were in sealed cases. Anyway, one day I noticed that one of them was laying down when it should have been standing up so I went to fix it and the coin inside was gone. Noticed one or 2 other things missing that day. Felt very wrong as the only people that had been in my house were family. Needless to say now no one gets to see my coins except my mother. I know it's a long shot but I hope you are able to recover some of what was lost. :(

So sorry for your loss, getting ripped-off is the worse feeling in the world.

Nonetheless, I'd take any information I had on the coins and visit every possible place they could sell them. Personally, for me it'd be worth the effort to at least try rather than give up. You just never know what could happen. Most thieves are really, really dumb...to the point where they'd probably take all them in the original holders to a dealer. If you have a complete description of the holders and coins, you might just nail the chump that stole them.