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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;42Skeezix, post: 32198, member: 40&quot;]I woulda tossed it too, Greg.</p><p><br /></p><p>Did they design the figurines too? The big eyed guy with &quot;World&#039;s Best Dad&quot; and such.</p><p><br /></p><p>Is this the final act of a &quot;bad luck comes in three&quot; scenario?</p><p>Way back when I did the Very first &quot;Antiques at Carlisle&quot; show at the Carlisle Pa. fairgrounds where one of the biggest antique automotive swap meets in the country takes place annually. They were trying to expand their scope.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, it was a 4 day show. On the first day I sell an odd tennis racket with a knob carved on the end of the handle. I got it at a yard sale for a buck so I was more than happy with the 30 bucks I got for it. On the second day I sell a model rail road car mounted on a piece of marble. On the bottom of the marble it is marked Marklin. As I had picked it up for 10 bucks at the local flea I was thrilled to get $400 for it (I knew Marklin was blue chip.)</p><p>Sunday morning, the last day of the show, dawns and we slowly start breaking things down. As I&#039;m puttering about a guy walks by our booth carrying THE TENNIS RACKET I had sold earlier. I stop him and ask about the racket. He tells me all about it, how early, circa 1890-1900, how rare the &quot;fish tail&quot; on the handle was, and how he&#039;d NEVER seen one made in the U.S.A.. I ask about value. He tells me he paid $500 for it but he would have paid whatever he had to to get it, it was SOOOO rare. (To little to late...I now did my research, probably around 2 grand.)</p><p><br /></p><p>OPPPS....oh well, that&#039;s the way it goes...</p><p><br /></p><p>But wait, there&#039;s more...</p><p><br /></p><p>The FOLLOWING week I&#039;m out at Black Angus and Renningers in Pa. (Antiques country USA) The talk of the whole place (toy guys anyway) is this SUPER RARE MARKLIN PRESENTATION PIECE of a PROTOTYPE rail car that turned up at Carlisle. It sells at auction a couple of months later for over $3000.</p><p><br /></p><p>These are perhaps the two BIGGEST mistakes I&#039;ve made in this game...ever.</p><p><br /></p><p>Wellll, one of the other things I remember about that show was a buddy of one of my booth partners stopping in for awhile. He&#039;s on the hunt for those very figurines I mentioned and any Big Eye art he can find. (this is, like, 1990) He sez we should buy all we can and stash it as it would be BIG someday. I thought &quot;you&#039;re nuts&quot; but held my tongue. Over the years I&#039;d see these pieces all the time and always get a chuckle remembering that conversation, even to the point of almost buying an odd piece here or there but never quite taking the plunge. I guess I should have listened.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, is this that triumvirate of misfortune finally drawn to completion?</p><p>Had I listened would I now have a valuable stash ready to cash in?</p><p>(Nah...I could never bring myself to hoard such dreck...but still....)</p><p><br /></p><p>I guess that show will haunt me to the day I die.</p><p>On a MUCH better note though I met one of my VERY BEST friends to this day at that show, and those memories easily outweigh the bad.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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