Guess that falls in with Leno's "Stupid Crooks".
Twenty or so years ago, I read a similar story in MR. Pretty much the same thing happened. One night this guy came home from work, found his house had been broken into. But the thief did take the tv, vcr, jewelry, and his brass loco collection. Couple of days later, he gets a call from the police saying they have the guy that broke into his house.
Seems like, he went into a hobby store with the locos, and asked the owner the value of the locos that his father had left him. The owner recognized the locos, because he sold them to the guy that got robbed. He told the "perp", that he had to check the pricing book he had in the back. Instead, he called the police. They arrested him on the spot. When they checked the "perps" apartment, they found tvs' vcr's and other items that had been robbed from other houses in the area.