[Tim Kindler]

My story involves board memeber David Halpen. A few years back, I bought a W600 Ed Abbatichio off of him for $500, I think. I loved that card and had it for over a year until I needed to sell it to fund another card that I have treasured even more. Anyway, when I put it up for sale on the BST, another board member (I apologize that I can't remember who alerted me to it, but Thank You) alerted me that he thought my card was stolen from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I did some research on the Hall of Shame website, and sure enough the red markings on the back fit the description of items that had been stolen and then the markings were slightly changed to cover up the specific markings from the Hall of Fame. I contacted David who said that he bought the W600 and other cards in a lot from Mastro a few years earlier. Now I'm not blaming Mastro either because it is believed that the items with these markings were stolen many years ago and have probably changed hands many times with most of the parties being like Mastro, David, and I having no clue that they were stolen. David felt so bad about selling me a stolen item, even though he had nothing to do with the theft and he was sort of a victim too, that he bought back the card from me at the price he sold it to me, and was going to talk to the Hall of Fame about somehow returning it to its proper place. This means David will be out some serious money by doing the right thing. I don't know how David's pursuit with the Hall of Fame turned out, but I just thought that someone who did such a graceful and polite thing should be recognized. Thanks David!

Tim Kindler