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Comment by IAmGraydon | Hacker News Reader

I've read the article twice and can't seem to find how they know there are two other cabinets. Did James Martin's family tell them that there were two others his son dumped? Judging by the flyer he posted, he seemed to know there were two other cabinets before he even knew who they belonged to.

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It's explained better at this link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/article/lost-1960s-photos-...

A different person found three, but only took one.

Follow-up: https://www.sfchronicle.com/vault/article/san-francisco-phot...

That explains it. Thank you.

> Donnie Weaver, an artist who works with preschoolers, saw the shiny cabinets curbside and stopped short.

> “I thought, ‘Oh, what a cool box! ’ ” he remembered. “Because I like stuff from that era. I picked it up without really looking inside, opened it up when I got home, and thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

> Weaver later ran back with a wheelie cart — the cabinets weighed about 15 pounds each — but the other two boxes were gone.

Yeah, there's a missing sentence or paragraph explaining it, but that was my impression too. The son who went rogue and purged the cabinets put three of them out on the street, only one has been recovered, according to the family. Something like that.

Based on personal experience it seems like his sons would have a general idea of what was stored in the garage or attic. Considering he threw his brother under the bus to the city newspaper, I suspect he had been keeping an eye on those boxes for quite some time.

All I can think of is that something on the cabinet indicating it was cabinet number 3/3? It seems they knew there were two others before the family came forward.

Someone brought either the cabinet or the content of it to the collector. Most likely, they are the source of the number of cabinets.

Dr. Caligari, perhaps?

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