A perfect example of why some collectors won't share images of rare stuff

[karamazov80]

I bought some stuff from him earlier in the year as well, and my payment was sent to the e-mail address linked on his website under the "Paypal" link at the bottom of the page. I should say, though, that despite the fact that he stole your image (which is very uncool), he was a more than fair seller in my dealings with him. . .

[samluvsjoes]

That really sucks Shane. I hope you can find out more info on this.
The funniest thing about the auction in particular is the description. "The figure itself is very rare, so to have a carded version is so frickin' cool!"
Man, if I had only known how rare thesy were before I sold all of mine for so cheap recently.
Sam

[GBPackRat]

Shane,

I'm sorry to hear this happen to such an advocate of someone who shares the rare things he has.

Its a tough spot to be in. You want to showcase the rare stuff you have, but after seeing stuff like this is makes me want to keep all the stuff I have under raps.

What really sucks is, if you want to showcase anything, you need to watermark it at your site and that just takes away from the over all image itself.

Well perhaps those of us with rare stuff can slowly get information out to others one person at a time, via word of mouth and etc...

Its a shame you have to pull the stuff from your site, you have a great collection, but I understand,

Tanner

[Urban Saboteur]

You know Shane this really what represents what's taking the collectors hobby south. People like that stealing images for high profits.. motivated by greed and no decency to even contact you to ask!!

I don't blame you for taking your images down, it does however say it all when it's come to this all because people can't respect people's stuff.
I once tried to order something off him, but he never responded to my email, so that was a dead deal straight away.

By the way those that have traded with him, You say paypal doesnt go that far back? Maybe not, but if any of you are as cautious as me you might still have your paypal notification email to confirm your payment details and this should have the full information.

I aint saying disclose it here (as that's not allowed) but certainly pass it on to Shane by all means.

[Dean]

You can go back through your Paypal records up to like 390 days, so a year and a month. I recently went through all my paypal activities for the past year to find prices on Lego's I bought and recently sold.

Also, I have seen the 334th for about 2 years now, and they have always had those custom cards. I am surprised that this was brought to your attention only recently.

[Corey Stinson]

It appears that the cardbacks may have originated from this seller:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1986-STRATO-VIPE...QQcmdZViewItem

Does anyone have any *real* contact info they can give me for this seller?

Have you checked the WHOIS domain registration information over at Tucows, the registrar for that domain?

[orionlukteel]

Man, I was *wondering* where Rick got those images. That surprises the living daylights out of me, since I honestly wouldn't have expected anything remotely shady from the 334th (repro stickers aside, being the only kinda gray area).

Wow, Shane, I have no idea what to say. I've always been grateful to you guys who have the pre-production pieces for giving us glimpses. It's definitely been appreciated.

[Tattoo Shane]

Thanks to everyone for your support on this issue.

I was provided with Rick's home address and phone number earlier this evening and i called him up and called him out. In the end, I asked that he remove the auctions and destroy all of his stock for these or i would bring Hasbro and eBay down on him hard. He simply said "Alright" and hung up on me.

I'm glad to see his auctions have been pulled and i'll be calling the stores he has listed on his site that carry his product tomorrow and make sure that they've been contacted and instructed to stop selling them as well.

FWIW, i've seen his auctions in the past but i had never seen one for Strato-Viper. I'd only ever seen the other vehicle driver or mail-away auctions before and didn't think much of it. I had always thought the photo i had posted on my site wouldn't be good enough to use in this way, nor did i ever think someone would stoop low enough to do this so watermarking was never a concern with me. Live and learn i suppose.

[AlternateUniverse Steeler]

I have been seing those for way over a year on ebay. I bought other joes stuff (not the cards) and had no problems with him. I always wondered if he was the artist. Now we know!

[Flophouse]

I'm glad things were settled for you Shane. You did a small favor for me many years ago and we exhanged emails and it was easy to tell you were one of the good guys. The internet has definitely made any kind of artistic copyright difficult to police though.

I'm mostly disappointed to see events like this push some of the big fish collectors like yourself down into deeper waters. Although I have a fairly massive collection myself, I'm smart enough to know I'm still many leagues away from those trophy fish, that like you say, are hesitant and private about their collections. It's these collectors that I'm always interested in hearing about. Don't get me wrong, any size collection is a worthy collection if the owner's proud of it, from five pieces to five thousand pieces. But nothing gets the fandom more giddy than when one of these big fish come to the surface, if only for an instant.