bennyjay

Hey I'm not sure about the magnify thing your looking for. I'm new to the hobby and still don't have the good equipment either haha.

I'm not sure about estate sales, never bought anything from one. I'd say it's worth a shot, though. I have heard about people getting lucky at estate/garage sales, but I've yet to get lucky myself.
I had a friend who bought an Indian head cent at a garage sale once, and he overpaid. It was marked VF, and he paid a VF price, but I looked at it and it ranked in closer to a G grade.
So, if you do those type of sales, make sure you have some grading experience. I have this book, and like it a lot, but it seems to be sold out on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide-Grading-Counterfeit-Detection/dp/B000MWRJDW/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1301777079&sr=8-20

the person on ebay was most likely trying to trick people into bidding making them think it was rare. You can buy coins from your bank or order boxes of coins in larger quantities. It will take a fairly long time to find many things of value like errors , i've only found a few not worth too much. You can also switch to searching for silver coins if you haven't been already.