C# COM object for VB6 that needs a Variant property - Property Set is failing

I'm having to support an ancient VB6 application. Currently, I'm writing a COM object class for it. Everything works except for assigning a value to a property. This particular property needs to behave like a VB6 variant data type when used in VB6 code.

I have the simplest little class in C#

    [ComVisible(true)]
    [Guid("1EB35E9B-60EE-4A26-BAEB-6A2D7AC32FF0")]
    [ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual)]
    public class FooThingy
    {
        private object _value;

        public object Value
        {
            get
            {
                return _value;
            }
            set
            {
                _value = value;
            }
        }

        public FooThingy()
        {

        }
    }

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And I call it via the simplest VB6 code. I have added line numbers for easy reference.

Public Sub Main()
    
1    Dim foo As FooThingy
2    Set foo = New FooThingy
3    If (foo.value <> "hello") Then
4        foo.value = "Testing"
5    End If

End Sub

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At line 4 it fails with a runtime error 424 "Object required" yet line 3 evaluates with no problem. I know VB6 has this weird distinction between Property Let and Property Set and I'm guessing that is somehow related. What I need to figure out is how do I get my C# class to work with the VB6 code above. Perhaps there's some kind of marshaling declaration that will do the trick? I'm really hoping there's an answer to this because my alternative is to go through this very old VB6 program that was very badly written and find all the places where assignment is being done and replace it with a SetValue() method call which DOES work.