Marking a scope/mount for identification purposes

[Kevdan]

Hi all,

Just thinking outside the box for a minute, like most people I live in a built up urban area, and would love to build an obsy but garden just wouldnt take it, (well garden would but misses wouldnt) so in th every rare case of it being clear for more than 1/2 hour every 5 weeks I'd like to leave the mount and scope out in a tent type obsy without the fear of billy the burgler getting his grubby little hands on the kit, The garden is fairly secure but not Fort Knox.

So questions are :-

1. Does anyone make any type of alarm that can be attached to mount & scope ? smaller stuff could be taken inside the house at the end of a session.

2. Has anyone thought about starting a database where we could all mark our kit so in the case of house/shed burglaries we could identify the kit and also if we sold kit on or are looking for second hand kit we could know its history of ownership. I realise it would take years to comply but all things start somewhere. And just knowing that stolen kit can be returned to its rightfull owner is reason enough to do it. I Like everyone else likes a bargain but would never buy from anyone if I thought it was stolen.

Even if we could get forums like this to look into doing this (sorry moderators if it looks like im making work for you) and then forums could work together when looking for ID of any kit.

For example an advert for a mount could read "eq5 for sale id number 11223344" and then just look on data base and know what it is, where it was bought from, and if it has been reported as stolen.

Ok thats it for now.

Kev.

[Bizibilder]

I believe the police have a scheme whereby you mark your easily removed property with your post code using a uv pen. This is normally invisible until it is put under a uv light when all is revealed and your goods are duly returned to you.

[Jim-a]

The ID no. / database idea is a great one. Relatively straight forward to build from a technical perspective (I develop web software), and great to know the history of a piece of kit before you buy - but I guess it would rely on there being an appetite for it and people going to the effort of registering the kit - interested to know what other people think

[carlc]

Sounds like a good idea - at least you could let me know when my wife is trying to sell my kit.

[Kevdan]

The UV marker the police use is Ok for them but myself and i suppose lots of others wouldnt want to go and look at some kit and go all over it with a uv lamp and tell the people you are buying from "im just checking to see if its nicked" I know the ID mark would be the same idea but if there was an agreement on exactly where to put the mark for example on the north underside of a mount, it would be easily seen and then checked and if all is good then no one is hurt by this, and if anyone is selling they would advertise the id (unlike the UV mark) anyway so win win in my book.

Im all for it and if it went ahead I would eventually like suppliers to join. Obviously Im not sure how youd mark up small expensive items like eyepieces but thats something that can be worked on.

Kev.

Im off to the patent office.

[CFC]

I don't think this will ever work unless suppliers were forced to do it and maintain a database, and it never will be.

The concept doesn't even work brilliantly with dogs and microchips.

[E621Keith]

There is a national property register used by the police called Immobilised.

I think the tags and marking are really for the police. If they raid a burglar's house and recover a bunch of stolen goods, they can use these marking to trace the original owner. You may be surprise the police actually do recover stolen goods, but often they can't trace the original owner and end up selling them in their own auction site.

http://www.immobilise.com/

[todd8137]

Insure you kit safest way get a shed ,sweet talk your good lady I would not leave no kit out side in a tent unless you going to sleep out there with it

Pat

[Darkstar_1]

I agree with G2V insurance and at least a secure shed, a database like the one mentioned above would be a nightmare to maintain. It would have to be kept permanantly up to date or it would end in chaos, it probably would anyway ( law of entropy). The easiest way to check if kit is kosha is keep receipts, and if you sell it on give the seller a receipt this shows proof of ownership. IMHO.

clear skies, Den.