An email from Legham - have you seen his toys?

[griffin]

For those who have been a member since before 2007, you might remember a Perth collector who had the username Legham.
He was one of our earlier members, from about 2000 to 2007, attending Botcon in 2007 before moving to England straight after the convention.

Every year or so he comes back to Perth to visit the family, and while he is there on his most recent visit he emailed me with a request, which is the point of this posting.

While he has been over in England, he had a box of Transformers toys at his parents place, but since his last visit, in mid-late 2012 his parents did renovations and cleared out a lot of their junk to charity... and since he now can't find that box, he was wanting to see if any of the members had come across some rare finds in the last year, like at a charity shop or flea market, or even on ebay.

Most of the items were regular release figures at the time of the 2007 convention, but included was a 2007 boxset, a Movie Optimus toy signed by Peter Cullen, and assorted BotCon merchandise (as this was a box he posted to his parents from BotCon, because he was heading to England from the convention).
So most of the items wouldn't stand out if sold individually, but if someone had come across a signed sealed Movie Optimus or BotCon 2007 boxset in the last year in Perth, or anywhere in Australia really, it would stick in someone's memory.

There's not much that can be done now, even if these items were tracked down, because they were probably bought legitimately (if they weren't initially stolen)... but I think Legham (Liam) is wanting some closure on this, and if he's lucky, maybe stumble across either of the two main items by someone willing to sell them back to him.

For his own words, this was his email...

I want to ask you a massive favour- can you use the power of Ozformers to reach out to the Perth TF community on my behalf?
I never re-registered when the forums last moved so I can't post on there- besides, I think there's more chance of people reading the post if it comes from you rather than it be my first post as a re-registered member...

So the situation is this- remember when we went to Botcon together and I posted a box home with my entire toy haul?

That box sat in storage my mum's house for years. Every time I went home to visit Perth, I would add a few more toys to it- here is my recollection of it's contents:
Botcon- 2007 boxset and all attendee exclusives. Movie Leader Class Optimus signed by Peter Cullen(!!!) T shirts and other merch.
Universe- Ironhide, Sideswipe, Silverstreak
Animated- Jazz, Grimlock, Swoop, Snarl, Soundwave
Movie- Camaro Bumblebee, Barricade, Bonecrusher, Longarm, a few more basics/deluxes that I'm forgetting. Premium Megatron, Ratchet and Starscream.

The tragedy (wait for it...) I recently went back to visit Perth, and the case is gone
In between visits, my parents renovated their house, and the outside area where the box was stored was 'cleansed' of junk.
For a while I thought the whole box might have gone to one of my brothers and still be sitting unopened somewhere, but after a few days of frantic searching I've come to accept that it might have been unwittingly given away to a charity shop.

Can you help me spread the word to the Perth community to see if anyone's come across the haul or ever heard rumours of someone finding such a stash?
My folks' house is in Trigg so it would have turned up in a charity shop in the northern suburbs.
The renovations happened in mid-late 2012- so annoyed that it's taken me so long to discover!
The Botcon boxset and toys and signed Leader class Prime in particular are super rare within Australia so should have caught people's attention if they ever went on sale...

Obviously there's nothing I can do if the toys have been sold, but I have some glimmer of hope that a benevolent collector stumbled across them and has kept them in their personal collection. I know that if I ever found a haul that screamed 'given away by accident', I'd do whatever I could to track down the original owner!
I'll happily offer a reward if they turn up, they're some of the most treasured figures in my collection... I don't want all those hours of queuing at Botcon to be for nothing!

Worst case scenario I find out for sure that they've been sold and can move on with my life :P

A million thanks in advance, let me know if you need any more info.
-Liam

If you have any info, post here or let me know. I can then pass it onto Liam.

(I want to help him out, so am posting this instead of him as he hasn't been a member here... but I had a thought that people might see it as an abuse of power being posted by me just to get credibility - looks like it has been okay though)

[Ravagecat]

What a bummer for this guy

Griffin as an admin and founder (co-founder?) of this forum I don't think it is an abuse of power to try and help out a fellow collector. Isn't that the purpose of this forum?? To help Transformer collectors out with info, news etc so why not add lost and found to the list of services too

[BigTransformerTrev]

Do you think I should move this into one of the public sections, or would that be an abuse of power being posted by me?

I don't think it would be an abuse of power at all, but the only thing with putting it in the public section is you never know who is reading it - it may prompt the less scrupulous to start searching in order to obtain this lost stash for themselves.

[UltraMarginal]

I agree with both posts above, not an abuse of powr, would get the word out more but potentially allow someone less scrupulous to go hunting.

though I'd suggest in 2 years, if they haven't been purchased already they've probably been forgotten on a storage shelf somewhere. migh tbe worth his while emailing a few central donation house offices.

[ChlorHex]

I doubt it'll be around in the same condition he posted it to his parents.
Some kid probably has it now but will keep an eye out as it's a sucky feeling to have your prized possessions given away.
I'm located in the Southern suburbs so quite unlikely it's here.
There are a couple of deluxe members located in the north so hopefully they can assist this chap as well.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I haven't seen any, but don't really frequent the Trigg area at all, so am probably no use. If the Botcon set was boxed though, that'd certainly stick out in an op shop. ...

Wonder if they went via garage sale?

Poor bugger. I remember Legham.

[lancalot]

I remember seeing a few perth seller popping up on gumtree a lot .... but I don't remember the item as im mainly into masterpieces

[AJ_Prime]

I live in the northern suburbs of Perth but haven't seen it pop up at any toy collectors fairs or anything in the last couple of years, including those up this way.

Not much help I know, but as others have said, if it was sold in a garage sale it's hard to say if an appreciative collector got their hands on it, or if it went to some kid. I'd like to think though, that an adult, upon seeing a toy signed would think that it would be a collectable.

I'll keep my eyes open for it though. There's another collector's fair in the northern suburbs next weekend so I'll let you know if I spot it.

Sorry I can't be any more help.