Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be a lot of high-end Marklin items on e-bay since the Marklin museum was broken into a while back. Has anyone else noticed this?
There’s usually a fair amount of Marklin models on ebay - I’m pretty sure it’s not connected to the break-in as the police recently caught up with the people responsible for that and managed to recover the items stolen. As I understand it, the models that were taken were mainly older ones (gauge 1 tinplate, some early non-train Marklin items, etc) of which there are very few surviving examples (and they’d be instantly recognisable). Only a particularly stupid burglar would attempt to sell these on through an internet auction!
There was a recent announcement in the Model Railroader e-mail newsletter to the effect that the burglars of the Marklin Museum had been caught and all of the stolen items were recovered – I believe it said in Poland – so those Marklin items on e-Bay are not the hot ones.