Jan and John Maggs Antiques

A London tragedy

“One of us gets hit over the head every week, now,” said our friend, an experienced antique jewelry dealer who stands weekly in London’s Portobello Road antiques market. “They know who we are, where we stand, how and when we arrive and depart, even where we live.”

While most of the Portobello Road shops don’t open officially until 7:00 or later each Saturday morning, many dealers are already in their stands by 5:30, when some of the most active trading is well underway. But, as it is dark and the number of people on the street is still small, the early morning hours are an ideal time for thieves to strike. The danger is exacerbated by the lack of parking space, forcing most dealers to walk from bus stops far from the market or from parking spaces equally remote. Sadly, each time we return to London, we hear new reports of violence against dealers, and the frequency of these assaults is increasing rapidly.

These crimes are not the random acts of vandals, nor do they always occur in the seclusion of the early morning hours. They are carefully planned attacks by professional thieves, as the following tale will illustrate.

On a recent Saturday two dealers, husband and wife, left Portobello Road after a day of selling, bound for their home two hours away. Roughly halfway they made their customary rest stop at a service center on the motorway. She got out of the car and went inside the shop, while he remained in the car with their stock, which had been carefully placed on the back seat. Using the car’s automatic switch, he locked all of the doors and waited for her to return.

Shortly after she disappeared from sight, a young man appeared at the passenger side window and, gesturing to the ground, told the dealer that someone had dropped several bills. Fearful that they might have fallen from his wife’s purse as she got out, he unlocked the car and walked around the front.

As he did so, two accomplices, who had been stationed at the rear of the car, opened the back doors and grabbed the dealers’ stock. By the time he realized what had happened, the trio had escaped on foot with an inventory valued at three hundred thousand pounds – well over half a million dollars.

It was a well-planned and perfectly executed heist. Since the cost of insuring stock is prohibitive, the couple, like most of our British dealer friends, had no coverage. Consequently, their loss will probably never be recovered; and the trauma will, of course, last for years. In a few minutes the lives of two people were irreversibly and disastrously altered.

For those of us who also regularly leave home with our stock, this tale is especially unsettling. Perhaps it will remind us of our vulnerability and encourage us to be constantly vigilant. Thieves are everywhere.

If you’ve never read about John’s near misadventure in the Brussels subway (published in our newsletter of November 2004), click here.
 

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