One of these full 12-car sets just sold in the June 10th Stout's auction. This is the first one in either 2 or 3 rail I've ever seen available in the secondary market.
Yes, I saw that. And it sold for nearly $4,500 with the buyer's premium! That is nearly $5,000 with shipping for the 12 cars! If you had tried to outbid that buyer, you were probably looking at least at $5,000+, maybe much more!
I recall seeing a couple of these sets for sale on this forum, but it was several years ago. And they were listed for below the original retail price, which was $2,099.85 ($699.95 x 3). There have been a few of these sets on ebay too over the last few years, but maybe not recently, which might partially explain the high price. Except that I think it is kind of insane to pay nearly $3,000 more than the retail price.
Maybe Scott Mann should reissue these. What Golden Gate Depot issued before was the 1941 version of the Lark. Personally, I would like to see a 1956 SP Lark set with the blunt-end observation and an articulated chair car added. Assuming Scott has the original tooling, all it would take would be to make the blunt-end observation and remove the skirts (or mostly remove the skirts) from all the cars. Scott already made the articulated chair car in the Daylight paint scheme. The 1956 version would have SOUTHERN PACIFIC on the letterboards of all of the cars instead of SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES on some cars and PULLMAN on the others. The 1956 version could be run with diesels or steam power and be prototypically correct, unlike the 1941 version, which is steam only.
