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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Cherd, post: 7808072, member: 24754&quot;]Hah! Reminds me about a time back when I was collecting antique frog-shaped fishing lures. I was just getting started with my collection and a somewhat common lure with box popped up in an Ebay auction. There was no description for the auction beyond the pictures, and I ended up winning it for around $170, which was a pretty typical price for a mid-condition example of that combo at the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once I received the frog, I took pictures and added them to a catalogue of previous sales that I had been maintaining. Upon doing this, I realized that my box was different from all of the other pictures, namely, the price was printed on the box in a different place. Come to find out, the box was also much larger, which I didn&#039;t realize because I&#039;d never actually seen one in person.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was active in a chat forum at the time that was similar to Cointalk, but for fishing lures, and I posted a thread about my box. I immediately was inundated with offers and so forth, and the guy that literally wrote the book on frog fishing lures had me give him a call. He said that the boxes were for prototypes that the company sent out to bait shops to garner interest before going into mass production, and up to that point, he only knew of two in existence. He had one in his collection, and he knew the name of the guy that had purchased the other at an auction back in the early 2000s.</p><p><br /></p><p>I found the auction listing, and it was my frog! (There were hand-written fishing instructions on the bottom of the box that matched perfectly). The book author ended up getting hold of the previous owner through various connections. The story that came back to me was that the guy had made some bad life decisions, his wife left him, took a bunch of his stuff, and threw it all on Ebay without having any idea what it was.</p><p><br /></p><p>I just happened to get lucky enough to accidentally buy this nearly one of a kind item. It may actually be a one of a kind, as my frog has brown spirals whereas every other has green spirals. People suspect that there may be 2 prototype boxes, but mine might actually be the only prototype frog. Anyway, 6 years later, and I still get a couple of emails a year from people trying to buy it. But, I&#039;d have to be offered more than any reasonable person would possibly want to pay. The story alone is worth too much to me <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie50" alt=":happy:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Here are some pictures of my combo, you can Google &quot;Live Action Frog&quot; if you want to see the common version.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1341063[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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