Jeremy Peerboom posted the image attached to this post in the Minnesota Comic Exchange group on Facebook after finding it while cleaning–he worked at Shinders in 2007, the year they closed, and presumably all employees received a copy of this note…

It reads:

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

I know that you are all wondering why I was calling all of the stores to have them give Steve the deposits.

Robert has taken Nancy and myself name’s off off the bank accounts. That makes it nearly impossible for us to have any control or run this business not being able to pay anything or buy anything.

What that means is there will be no comics next week, there will be no magazines next week and there will be no Tri-Mart next week.

We have no idea what will happen.

What we do know is that we are going to continue to keep the money from the stores deposits to make sure that we can pay payroll.

We are going to continue to work on a day to day basis.

I have no other information on the questions of “when will Shinders close” or “how much longer are you going to be in business”.

We have no idea how long Shinders as it is will last.

We are just as panicked as you are but we have decided that we are going to stick it out and see what happens.

We never want to run into the situation where people are working and will not get paid for it.

It closes with the signature (that I can’t decipher), and the date of 7/13/07.  The news story from MPR on the closing of Shinders was posted on July 17, so the stores lasted just a few more days after this note was written.

Obviously the Robert mentioned in the note was Robert Weisberg, who was the owner at the time, and had run into legal & financial trouble.  I suspect that the Nancy may have been Nancy Holtman, who was AP/AR Corporate Office Manager (based on her on LinkedIn profile), and wonder if the Steve mentioned was Steve Kupetz, who was one of the architects of the expansion of Shinders–although I thought maybe he was gone before 2007 (and based on what I’ve read, am not sure if he would be going around collecting deposits).  But I haven’t yet been able to figure out who it was that would have written the note–I assume it was whoever was the overall manager/President of the business at the time.

If you know, or have any thoughts, let us know!