This is the story of a very rare prewar set. If there is a list of the rarest prewar sets, then the 1937-41 -9a outfit has to be near the top! It was very expensive in its day and very few were probably sold and if they were, they were used and the carton was generally thrown away. From what I can gather there are only a handful known to the meccano community today...this is one of them! It came to me thru a well known meccano builder/collector who rescued it from the original owner's family via ebay a couple of years ago. The story he got was it belonged to their father who received it in the late 30's. It was with a motley bunch of dark red/green from the late 20's/early 30's and a bit of 1960's stuff. What was left when the sifting was done was a complete (or nearly so statistically to be insignificant!....;-) and turns out there was also most of a late 30's 8a in the mix also and a few parts bought at the same time but not belonging to either set. The parts are in great condition and had the original 9a outfit carton in complete but tired condition! DBDY decided that it needed to be restored as it is such a rare set but did not have the time and the skills (he says!) to do the job. It was offered to me and I took up the challenge. Notwithstanding, the biggest missing was the cardboard lift out tray from the 9a carton......Lost to time somewhere in the last 75+ years......THAT will be biggest part of this restoration job! The parts were in excellent shape,overall, and the carton was all there (except the tray) in very good but "loose" condition.... It was all shipped to me in the spring of 2014 and I got to work..........You can see the "as found" pics in this gallery:--------------------------------> http://www.nzmeccano.com/image-74939&frompage=4