Years ago, there was a store on East 23rd Street in Manhattan called Madison Hardware. They were a preferred dealer of Lionel trains for years and over those many years, they had amassed a huge inventory. If the brothers that owned the business knew you well, they might allow you into the basement to poke around a bit, escorted by an employee, of course.
My friend Bill, now passed, was an avid collector of Lionel trains and a good customer. He was in the store around 1980, I believe, and got a chance to go down in the basement with another guy and an escort. While looking around the basement, the two collectors talked a bit about who has what and what they’re interested in. It dawns on Bill that this other guy owns a lot of good stuff and he asks him how much his collection is worth. The guy tells Bill that he must have well over $100,000 invested. Bill says, “Wow. Where do you get that kind of money to invest in toy trains?” The guy just laughed.
As they were leaving, the escort asked Bill, “Don’t you know who that was?”
Bill says, “No. Who?”
He says, “That was Frank Sinatra. He comes in once or twice a year.”
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