I have a very good friend who buys and sells Antiques for a living.  As he is often in people's attics and basements, I thought it would be a great idea to teach him about Marx Playsets.  I gave him a tutorial, showing him how to tell Marx stuff from junk stuff...and anxiously waited for him to find lots of good stuff.  Well...in five years he didn't find a single boxed set.  Twice he found partial loose sets, but nothing like I expected way back when.  He learned well, though.  He watched my auctions on ebay and saw what some of the sets I sold went for.  When I told him about which sets are really valuable, he paid attention.  But he didn't find anything.  Until yesterday.

I went to our weekly men's Bible Study this morning, and after it was over, Mark asked if I wanted to go out to breakfast like we often do on Fridays.  I said "Sure", and walked over to where our vehicles were parked.  As I chatted with him my gaze drifted over his shoulder and I saw a playset box on the front seat of his truck.  My mind registered a "O, you found something!"  Then I read the word "Western" and recognized that the writing looked like the Western Mining Town set.  I started to get excited because that's a cool and rare set...And then I read the word "Frontier" and, according to Mark,  my eyes bugged out and I started to pant and pace.  "Do you know what you have there?  That's a three to four thousand dollar set!".  He grinned and said "I know."

He had gone to a regular, weekly auction at one of the local auction houses and there it was.  He thought it was the one I told him was the real valuable one, but he wasn't sure.  He tried to call me but I work late on Thursdays and wasn't available.  He decided he'd go as high a a hundred and fifty bucks.  He ended up getting it for 85 dollars.  

Five years ago, he would have gladly sold it to me for five hundred bucks and felt great...but I taught him too well.  So it's my joy to play with it for a while, take lots of photos, and put it on ebay for him...and I'll get 15%...and 15% of a Ringo set is like 70% or more of most others!

So if you think the sets just aren't out there any more...think again.  Mark's Beginner's luck was a long time coming...but well worth the wait!

O...you want to know how complete it was? For that part of the story, you'll just have to wait a couple of more days!