Tea cosies hot item for picky thief

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/The Press

PRETTY CRAFTY: Retropolitan owner Diane Ramsay shows a tea cosy, similar to the six were stolen from the collection behind her.

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Batten down your tea cosies, Christchurch, a kitsch burglar is on the loose and your cuppa could go cold.

Six antique tea cosies, worth up to $175 each, were the only items stolen from a second-hand store in the central city, leaving the owner baffled by the picky thief.

The tea cosies were collectibles because each was topped with a china doll, making the woollen cosy appear to be a flamboyant skirt.

Retropolitan owner Diane Ramsay said the theft was bizarre because four other shelves full of tea cosies were untouched.

The cosies were part of a not-for-sale collection in the corner of the shop. Ramsay arrived at work on Tuesday to find a side-door, which had its hinges reinforced with metal plates after a previous break-in, had been jemmied.

She remembered telling one customer recently the cosies were not worth anything, "except for those ones," pointing to the six special cosies.

"Someone must have overheard me," she said. "It's not a tragedy like everything else The Press has been reporting this week, but it's just so bizarre."

Ramsay was particularly upset about three of the most recent cosies, which she had bought from an elderly woman.

"They had belonged to her mother and when she sold them to me she said, `Mum would love to think they've gone to a good home'. That's what's sad. I really treasured them because of that. They looked wonderful. One was a '20s lady with a cloche hat; the other was a flamenco dancer."

A sign in Ramsay's store was obviously no deterrent to the thief. It reads: "No video surveillance, no store detective, no ink tags. Just karma."

- © Fairfax NZ News