Re: [Leica] Stolen Leicas--how do you prevent that from happening?

["Ted Grant" <tedgrant@home.com>]

As a general observation on this topic of preventing equipment from being
stolen I have to ask what kind of hotels have you or do some of you folks
stay in?

So far it sounds like the hotel staff where you stay are a bunch of mindless
thieves and steal everything in sight out in the open.  My good fortune has
been I've never lost anything out of a hotel room in 50 years of traveling
the world.  Now I've got to start worrying because I said that! ;-)

I suppose the Good Guy upstairs has been keeping an eye on my gear. As far
as walking around with cameras and in particular Leica's, the majority of
the bad guys in the world don't know a leica from a bed pan, Canons and
Nikons they do.

No one has as yet, mentioned whenever you put your bag or camera down on the
ground that you put one foot inside the shoulder strap or neck strap. That
means if your attention is diverted no one can pick it up and walk away with
it.

Black is better than flashy chrome no matter what manufacturer. The chrome
is bright and beautiful therefore it must be expensive, ergo steal me! The
black one is nothing, however, some jerk stealing really doesn't give a hoop
what the value is they take it and figure they'll get something for it.

As Marc James Small can attest, petty thieves are pretty stupid and have in
general not the slightest idea of the value of what they take, they just
take whatever they can quickly get away with and sell it for whatever they
can.

As in, they'd throw the camera gear away and sell the case! That says
something about the dummies who everyone here appears to fear.

Your own common sense of looking after your gear will keep you and it safe,
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that.

My only major loss and recovery was an R8, 35-70 and winder in Malaysia '98
during the Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur.  I was distracted and
set the camera down on the seat beside me and was called over to the side of
the swimming pool, when I realized I didn't have the camera I turned around
and it was gone!

Thanks to the diligent LUG members in KL and throughout Malaysia, 14 months
later I received the camera back in Canada in the identical condition when
it went missing.  True! And if you check the archives in the fall of 1999
you'll find the complete story.

In any event, some folks get hit and others don't no matter what precautions
one takes, so have your stuff insured.
ted














Ted Grant Photography Limited
www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc James Small" <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Stolen Leicas--how do you prevent that from happening?


> At 05:33 PM 9/1/01 -0700, Jim Laurel wrote:
> >In hotel rooms, I just locked up spare gear in a porter case, and cable
> >locked that to something in the room.  Most hotel room theft is
> >opportunistic.  You are at risk if you leave something out in the open.
> >Hotel staff are much more likely to go for that stuff before they go
> >rummaging around in your bags.
>
> In the US, it is normal for salesmen who have to leave their sample cases
> in their rooms to leave a bottle of bourbon or gin or, best of all, vodka,
> visible in the room.  This seems to satisfy the larcenous feelings of many
> hotel staff members.
>
> I do not know if the same applies overseas, but most US hotel staff
members
> are from the lower working class, and wouldn't know a Leica from Jim
> Larkin.  They MIGHT know a Canon or a Nikon, but that would be the limit.
> And the risk of removing the gear carries with it some risk of getting
> caught -- and, to these folks, cashing in on this stuff is damned
> difficult:  the fences they might know would deal with are specialists in
> car stereos and boom boxes and, maybe, paste jewelry, but would know
> nothing at all about anything more sophisticated.  So, they would steal
> your camera case FOR the case, and throw the cameras in a trash can.  The
> case they could sell.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!
>
>