Did you used to work for Hope and smuggle a piece out every day in your lunch box?
Not far off actually.
Im also on Retrobike 20+k posts(increasingly less these days) and a chap joined who had a big pile of Hope early stuff, including some one off,rare stuff looking to sell it all. I jumped at the chance and two large boxes appeared in the post a few weeks later. He was working for Hope for a long time, I think as one of their design/engineers.
A lot of it I initially gave away, Im a sucker for a good sob story, things like C2 pistons, hub end spacers, of which there was many.
After that and once I'd separated out the wheat from the chaff, I embarked on a spending spree buying up everything that presented itself on ebay, to complete 'missing sections' of the Hope timeline. I have spent maybe £2k on collecting it. Id fix then either sell on to fellow retrobikers, or squirrel really nice,rare or nos parts into my private collection.
This is one of my choice collections.
As we know bitd every fork was different, many frames had no disc mounts, so Hope made a different cqliper to suit each application. Eg Early Marzocchi bombers weren't IS (51mm) but were 47mm) or other forks the spacing was 50mm, just enough differences that a different caliper was needed long before it all became standardized. So we had 11 different caliper sizes(approximately)
In the pile of parts I got from the Hope chap, was a hub, custom made single speed disc and a caliper for it didnt exist so they prototype'd one and it was designated caliper No10(For C2) Not ever available for retail sale.
At the time I'd most of the numbered calipers but was missing some - No12(DH4 i think, or Enduro 4) but one that was designed to fit the big **Marzocchi supermonster. To get that caliper I paid £80 just for the caliper to complete the 1-12 set
The idea was to make a workshop clock, with all the calipers going round to represent the numpers. Its totally unique because for all intent purposes there is no No10 caliper and I'm the only one who has them(3 actually) so only I can make this clock.
The No12 isnt featured in the pic, i took it before I'd finally found the Fing thing

and its been on the back burner,I'll get round to it one day.
For the uninitiated. The Marzocchi Super Monster is a 300mm fork came out in I think about 2002. Makes the Fox 40 look like it belongs on your kids bike. Short lived, but holy hell

(pic not my bike)