Acevedo also bought the museum building, a colonial brick townhouse built for Captain James Abercrombie in 1758 in the Society Hill section of the city.
     Neither Perelman nor Acevedo would confirm the price paid for the museum and its contents, but trade sources said the price was $3 million for the collection of about 3000 toys and banks and another $1.1 million for the building.
     Perelman restored the house and opened his private museum in 1969. About 40 to 50 visitors a day paid $2 for adults or 90 cents for children to see the approximately 3000 toys on display.
     Perelman said he closed the museum after two gunmen bound and gagged caretaker/curator Michael Tritz, 67, and made off with about 100 antique marbles on August 5.

     According to Tritz, it was twenty after nine on a Friday morning when the thieves entered the museum.
     "I was waiting to let the people in the museum, when two white men came in; one wore a handkerchief, the other didn't even bother to cover his face. They were all hopped up and very nervous," Triz recalled.
     Triz said one man put a gun to his head. "It seemed as big as a cannon right in my face." Then, the thieves bound and gagged Tritz and took him downstairs to the ladies' room. "I heard one of them upstairs hammering at the display cases. I thought he was getting into all of them . . . but all he could break was the case with marbles in it on the third floor," Tritz recounted.
     Tritz was untied by a cleaning woman who found him in the ladies' room after the gunmen had left with the antique marbles. Apparently, the 5/8" thick bullet-proof glass foiled the thieves' attempt to get into the other cases. Tritz estimated one of the thieves spent about 45 minutes trying while the other watched the door.
     According to Tritz, Perelman, who has an apartment on the top floor of the building, was away at the time of the robbery. "When the maid told him about it, Perelman said, 'That's it, nobody's life is worth that'," Tritz said.
     Perelman closed the museum immediately. Acevedo reportedly had been making offers to buy the collection for some time.
     Perelman said it would be very difficult to trace the missing marbles in the marketplace. Even the rare sulphides (marbles with sculpted figures or animals of gypsum or clay embedded in the glass) are probably not unique. Perelman said he has no photographs of them.
     Acevedo and Perelman shook hands on the deal on August 9, and the next two days two women on Acevedo's staff inventoried the museum.
     The sale was supposed to be a big secret. There was no report of the robbery in the local press. In fact, the Philadelphia Daily News had a feature article on the museum on August 17. M.A.D. learned of the sale from Mimi Handler, an editor for Early American Life, who was doing a Christmas issue story on toy banks. She called the museum to confirm its hours and was told it was closed. Based on her tip, we were able to interview Tritz.

 
     The trade heard the rumor at Renninger's when Tony Koveleski, a toy dealer from Scranton, came to the museum two weeks after the robbery and found it closed, and Tritz told him of the robbery and sale.
     Perelman's mechanical banks are considered the finest study collection of banks, and his assortment of animated cap pistols is the best anywhere. (When the trigger was pulled, the figures mounted on the guns barrels would buck, kick, or bite, and the motion exploded the cap.)
     The early American tin toys and cast-iron fire engines, horse-drawn carriages, and other vehicles are also notable, as are the lithographed paper toys and some rare automatons. There is also a representative collections of dolls and doll houses.
     The banks, Perelman's special interest, were given plenty of space in showcases, but the toys were crowded into display cases on the upper floors, an arrangement that may not have enthralled children but amazed knowledgeable collectors.
     It took appraisers Donal Markey, a mechanical and still bank expert from Stamford, Connecticut, and Bill Bertoia, a toy specialist from Vineland, New Jersey, nearly two weeks to catalog and appraise the collection.
     Friends of Perelman say he had tried in vain to give his toy museum to the city of Philadelphia, but he could never conclude negotiations. When he wanted to put up an antique carousel he had bought, the city would not grant the permit. John V. Alviti, director of the Atwater Kent Museum, said Perelman never approached the museum about the gift. The Atwater Kent Museum is the repository of all the city's historical artifacts and collections.
     Acevedo has no plans to reopen the museum or try to keep the Perelman collection together. He planned to sell it, first in a tag sale from the museum building and later from his shop at 996 Madison Avenue in New York, which is currently undergoing renovation.
     Acevedo invited the big spenders for the first session of the tag sale scheduled for Friday, September 16, after M.A.D. went to press. Forty collectors and dealers were to be given first pick at this invitation-only sale, which Acevedo called the "Great Grab of Eighty-Eight."
     The conditions were stiff. "They have to buy $50,000 worth of toys, or they get nothing." said Acevedo. "They'll come in for a preview at 8. At 9:30, I'll hand out price lists, and everybody will get shocked. They'll have to pick what floor they want."
     Banks, dolls, and American clockwork toys are on the third floor. Cast-iron horse, auto, and fire toys along with cap pistols are on the second floor. Early American tin, lithographed paper, and penny toys are on the first floor. The attic, filled with cartons of toys, is not part of the sale.
     Acevedo said he originally planned to handcuff partners and husband-wife teams so the tag grab would be an equal contest for single collectors. He gave up that idea because he was afraid someone would get hurt. The solution was, everybody gets a different color pen, but teams only get one pen. They have to sign the tag with that pen.
     "At 10, I'll explode a little cap pistol, and the great grab will begin," said Acevedo. Perelman had the best collection of cap pistols in the U.S.. Acevedo said he'd fire off one made by Ives.
     The buyers will not be permitted to take toys out of the glass cases. Perelman was famous for not letting other collectors touch his toys. Once in the glass cases, the toys stayed there. One Pennsylvania dealer who planned to attend the sale grumbled, "Don Markey takes ten minutes examining my $70 still banks with his loupe, but they expect us to buy without looking."
     The possible prices were the subject of a lot of presale gossip at Brimfield the week before the sale with some dealers predicting invites would just throw up their hands and walk out without buying anything. Acevedo said the cheapest toy would probably be a still bank for $50, while the top-priced item will be "a quarter of a million." He declined to say which toy or bank it would be.
     Collectors speculate that the banks will be the big ticket items. "There are several toy banks that could be in the $200,000 range," said one dealer. He names the Freedman's Bank, the Darkey and Watermelon (also known as Football and only example of its kind known), and the Japanese Ball Tosser.
     Some things were to be lotted — all the cap pistols in one lot, trains in another lot, and some rare brass and bronze bank patterns in another lot.
     Acevedo would not discuss the names of the private collectors who were invited but said one was coming from Hawaii. Dealers included the Weiss twins, Steven and Leon, from Hillman-Gemini in New York, Tom Sage, James Maxwell, Bob and Marianne Schneider, Richard Wright, and Noel Barrett, all from Pennsylvania, which is the center of the toy collecting world.
     With a hurricane approaching the East Coast, Acevedo said, " I don't even care if it rains." There is little doubt that the Perelman collection will be devastated by the heavy hitters, but if there is anything left, there are two clean-up dates. The collection will be offered to dealers on September 30 and to collectors on October 7.
     "Do you think there'll be anything left for us schleppers then?" wondered one collector.