I'm not talking about playing with these kits available on the web.
But actually having had in your hands a commercial product which uses either Nixies or Dekatrons.
For me, the only time was back in 1979. I repaired vacuum tube amplifiers at the time, so someone contacted me about repairing a digital frequency meter. It had large Nixies on its display.
I can't recall the meter's brand or model, only that it had a "Made in Israel" sticker which was kind of odd.
Anyways, the large PWB board was full of weird logic chips. They were definitively not 74xx-series TTL chips. In those pre-WWW days, if you could not locate the databook, there was nothing you could do.
But what amazed me was the Nixies. I had never seen one before, but because of its beautiful orange glow and the fact that the DC supply was about 85 volts, I assumed there were some sort of neon glow tubes. After marveling at them for a while, I closed the unit back, unable to repair it.
The owner, in those pre-recycling days, simply threw it in the trash. Just like that. He would have given it to me for free if I had asked.
In hindsight, and with the huge price Nixies command these days, I should have kept it.
So....do you have a similar story?