Case #3 Belt Buckle

·52 min·4 clips

A belt buckle with a tiny toaster that pops up toast captivated a nine-year-old boy, launching a decades-long mystery.

1. Mystery Show host Starlee Kine investigates the origins of a belt buckle featuring a pop-up miniature toaster, engraved with the names Hans Jordi and Bob Six. 2. The mystery belongs to Carson, a childhood friend of Starlee's who received the buckle from neighbor Jimmy Turk after Jimmy found it in a Phoenix gutter when both were children. 3. The core question is who Hans Jordi and Bob Six were, and how the buckle ended up in a Phoenix gutter — specifically at the corner of 40th Street and Camelback Road. 4. The buckle features a chef's hat, enamel-painted frying eggs, a corkscrew, and a working miniature toaster with a switch that makes toast the size of a pinky nail pop up. 5. Carson's father had a theory: Bob Six was a wealthy man who organized trail rides, Hans was the cook, and Bob had the buckle made as an appreciation gift. 6. Starlee finds Hans Jordy through a newspaper photo caption identifying him as a student in a free San Diego beach painting class taught by Donna Beers. 7. Donna describes Hans as memorable, German-speaking, and professorial — she and Starlee land on German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl as a visual reference and Donna confirms 'that's the vibe.' 8. A food blog called The Sated Epicure reveals a 1986 internship at a Lake Tahoe casino where Chef Hans Jordy, at 6'6", led kitchen interns at a sprint and never had a spot on his chef whites. 9. Sated Epicure tells Starlee that Hans gave him an unexpected A grade that allowed him to keep a scholarship — and that meeting his wife-to-be in his returning semester was only possible because of that A. 10. Sated also describes seeing Hans once in civilian clothes — a white Stetson-style shirt, cowboy boots, and jeans — calling it 'reverse Superman' and saying it was fate he happened to witness it. 11. A 1998 message board post on webfoodprose.com titled 'Looking for Hans Jordy' leads Starlee to Chef Karl, who worked alongside Hans at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix starting in 1959. 12. Chef Karl mentions a contact named Chef Rene who answered his old post; Chef Rene, an Ecuadorian-German chef who came to America in 1969 expecting cowboys, says Hans may be at a Phoenix Culinary Association meeting the following day. 13. Starlee tracks down Bob Bland — who she had assumed was Bob Six — at the meeting, but Bland says he has never been called Bob Six. 14. Hans is not at the meeting, but multiple veteran chefs confirm he had an 80th birthday party recently, organized as a surprise by his wife Peggy. 15. Chef Rene arranges for Starlee and Hans to meet at his house, telling Hans only that 'somebody from New York wants to interview you.' 16. When Starlee presents the buckle, Hans immediately recognizes it and says 'Oh my God' twice — then reveals it was stolen in a home break-in and that he searched pawn shops for it. 17. Hans identifies Bob Six as the chairman of Continental Airlines, who had the buckle specially made and presented it to Hans at a farewell dinner at the end of a series of ranch summers. 18. The episode is slow-paced and literary, with Starlee's narration dwelling on coincidence, fate, and the way objects carry stories through time. 19. Listeners drawn to investigative narrative podcasts with emotional payoffs and a quiet sense of wonder will find this episode deeply satisfying. 20. Listeners who prefer fast-paced investigative journalism or want concrete answers within the first ten minutes should look elsewhere.

As heard by us

A small lost object becomes a quietly funny, tender case file with real emotional weight.

This episode turns a belt buckle into a small, serious mystery. Carson's memory opens into neighborhood lore, a troublemaking kid, and a few oddly specific details, and the episode gives each one room to land.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a small mystery treated like a big one.

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