I was in my late teens and attended a stamp show in western Massachusetts. The place was really bustling with buyers and plenty of dealers offering their wares.

One table I walked up to had a box of covers from WWII Croatia; about half of them were fieldpost covers with Croatian sounding names as senders but with German fieldpost markings. All total maybe 50 covers for $10.

I was interested but $10 was a lot of money to me then even for 50 covers. The dealer had another small box with hundreds of MNH Hitler head combos including Germany and the occupied overprints. That box was $5. I put the cover box down in front of where I was standing and picked up the other box to look through it.

No sooner had I laid the one box down, unbeknownst to me, a fellow standing near me reached in front of me, grabbed the cover box, paid the dealer his $10 he already had in his hand and he quickly moved on. I quickly deduced that this was the guys M.O.

I looked at the dealer, I'm sure with a shocked look on my face and he looked back and shrugged, silently communicating to me, "Never put stuff down back on the table, moron--no matter how close to you..."

That was the one (the box of covers) that got away from me. How about you?

Bruce

Addendum: I always hang on to possibles when I attend stamps shows, even now decades later.