That I was in Philadelphia at a flea market, there's an antique dealer there who has a couple of small dancing wood figures on sticks, they're well carved, with that heavy aged patina and magnets on their feet...he tells me that they're part of a "Tom Thumb" game and shows me the rest, there are some magnets they would play with, and an old metal tractor seat that's been beaten into a game board, and he's searching around for the box.
I'm intrigued. I've never seen anything quite like this, and I ask him how much..
He sucks in his breath and goes to tell me...I'm waiting, he's humming and hawing, telling me how rare it is and I'm expecting, 50, maybe a hundred bucks.
$280 dollars with many assurances of it's rarity and value.
Now I could buy it, but it's a bit too expensive and there's other things that I want and he assures me that he comes this way every week, he's from Boston but he does "The Tour" so I can think upon it and I'm wondering how in this part of the world distances are so small....