The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-29
THE FARMER: JUNE 29. 1911
Tell How They Robbed I38
 JeWe|ry Stores
In Letter to Trade Paper Reveal Scheme by Which They
 Got $10,000

New York. June 29-There is Joy, not unmiXed with resentment, in the
 bosoms of retail jewellers in this neck O. the woods today because of the de- parture from our midst of brace or slick thieves who are estimated to have cleaned up $10.O00 during the last two months by the ''penny-weight game.' In seeking pastures new the thieves fired a parting shot at some Of their victims in the form Of a let ter to the Jewellers Circular Weekly.
 The modus operandi of the SW1ndle pencil back of his ear, runs into jewelry store and says he has just stepped over from the drug store, the grocery, Or the something else, ana wants to look at some engagement rings. A tray of diamond circlets IS always set before him. While he is inspecting them another man comes in, pokes a watch in the jewellers face and says he wants it in half an hour. After he leaves the one without hat says he will decide on the ring by the next day. and also departs. The jeweler sees that every place in the ring tray is filled and suspects noth- ing.
 It is not long, however, until he discovers that one of the larger stone rings has been stolen and ring with a smaller one, worth S25 perhaps, left in it's place. The swindle was success fully worked on William Koontz, No. 153 West One Hundred and Twenty fifth street few days ago, $25 ring being substituted for a $500 one
 Dozens of stores had been robbed in the same way in New York and smaller towns, and complaints had been printed in the Jewellers Weekly. The thieves usually called up the store beforehand and found out that the r>rn rr-or o+ hCn consequently had not read of the swim dle They overlooked a bet at New Brunswick N. J., however, and when a hatless young man hurried into Otto O. Sullivan's place there he left on the run with Sullivan and his clerks capers. But the thief escaped.
 SWINDLED 13s WHO TRIED TO
 SPINDLE THEM.
 Yesterday the Jewellers Weekly got a letter from Chattanooga, Tenn. written on Read House stationery. It began. by thanking the publishers for the free advertising they had given the pennyweight thieves and said they could notify their subscribers that i've have decided to quit the broth erhood of pennyweighters and hereby resign" It continued:
 we wish to thank those who con- tributed to our funds, and we were kindly treated everywhere with the possible exception of that small burg called New Brunswick. N. J.
 "Our only regret was that we were sorry to find so many daylight rob- bers among the trade and we had they succeeded in swindling us.
 we wish to congratulate you up- on being the advertising and news medium of such an enterprising band of up-to-date bandits as the retail jewellers, and as an instance of their keen-sighted thievery, we call your attention to the fact that our famous watch which you say we always wish ed fixed right away has never been out of repair since we stole it, but nevertheless every store we visited, and we visited 13S of them, has sue ceeded in finding something the mat ter with the watch of ours and has where from 9 cents to S3.50, which they never collected, for doing every thing from opening the cover to wind ing it up for us.'
 Another instance of legal robbery as practised by your subscribers we re- late of how one jeweler, after telling us that white sapphires were worth $11 a carat and agreeing to let us have three-carat for s3O, he thought we were nearsighted and stepped to the rear of his store to change the tag marks on the SapphireS from S1.50 to $11 a carat for our benehA we just reached over and transplanted some of his real carats from another tray to our pockets, leaving behind five beautiful $4 rings. We cost him $500 for trying to sell s1.50 stones for $1O."
 The letter winds up by saying they made S100O0 in two months and were going to open safe to be known as the "In and Out". They referred to the Koontz theft. Up to the time the paper sent a man to ask him about it, he had not mentioned it to anyone, not even his wife or head watchmaker. So it proved the letter was written by the real thieves. who are wanted, among other places, in Brooklyn, Newark, Philadelphia, Will mington and Pittsburg.