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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 11572527, member: 27832&quot;]I&#039;ve accumulated most of my collection well below retail, and I&#039;m happy to share my secrets -- but you probably won&#039;t like them.</p><p><br /></p><p>It really boils down to:</p><p><br /></p><p>1) Be lucky.</p><p>2) Be in the right place at the right time. (See point 1.)</p><p>3) Be patient. (See point 2.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I spent many, many, MANY hours scouring eBay listings, looking for new BIN listings well below retail (among thousands of times as many overpriced and/or bogus listings).</p><p><br /></p><p>I spent many hours stopping by local pawn shops (again, an occasional bargain amid tons of overpriced dreck, which still sold regularly -- their model works for them).</p><p><br /></p><p>I even spent some time hitting up banks for rolls of half dollars. Roll-hunting is great, because everything is priced at face value -- but the yield is <i>very</i> low.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was a bit like playing the lottery -- you hardly ever win, and when you do, the wins are usually small. Unlike the lottery, though, <b>it didn&#039;t cost me anything but time to play</b>. And the hunt itself was entertaining for me, so it wasn&#039;t even really &quot;costing&quot; me time.</p><p><br /></p><p>To be fair, there were times when I <i>thought</i> I had a bargain nobody else had spotted, but I just missed a detail everyone else had seen. Much more often, though, I took just a little too long making <i>absolutely certain</i> I had a bargain, only to have someone else snatch it out from under me. But I&#039;d rather miss an opportunity that way than buy something I&#039;ll regret.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you&#039;ve got the shopping itch, though, my approach probably isn&#039;t going to be rewarding enough.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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