Best Find Ever???

I lost a bid on a Teac A-3340 reel to reel (I know but I wanted one for old times sake) I bid $400.00 and it kept going up until someone got the bid at $592.00. I was crushed. I decided to look around on the web to see what I could find and live with. There was a Teac A-3440 (the top professional studio model used by all the recording studios and 1 step above the A-3340) for sale in Canada... $180.00!! I just knew everything was wrong with it at that price and I was going to have a turkey. It came yesterday... looks and acts brand new.. no scratches or anything. I have to replace 3 bulbs for the vu meters... $8.08 a piece. I love Canada.

A turntable from an outdoor fleamarket was at the bottom of a stack of 6 tables.This table marked a Dynaco but in reality was a Technics 1200 marketed to Dynaco,paid 1 dollar
Best of all it worked fine.And only the dust cover was marred up.

I found a Nakamichi OMS-7 with both original boxes,remote,owners manual. The guy couldn't get any sound out of his speakers. I paid him $25 and it cost me $65 to have a internal DAC replaced....Price $90

A Keith Monks Audio Labs record cleaning machine, all dusty and buried under a bunch of used power tools at a store that I have always suspected of dealing in goods that were acquired by less than honest means.

I offered the man behind the counter 70.00 for it. he muttered something about it being a "record player without a needle". All it needed was a thorough cleaning and a replacement of the spool of thread that runs through the vacumn tube.

Works like new. The story is that it came from a classical music radio station that dumped all of it's LP's in favor of little silver discs. I never found out what happened the records. Too bad. Anyone keeping the collection clean via a Keith Monks unit, must have had a lot of great vinyl in good condition.

I used that thing for several years, but got sick of moving it, as we were moving around a lot, wound up selling it to an audiophile in Germany who paid me what the real worth of a machine of it's caliber is. Anyone who is familiar with the KMAL machines knows how heavy they are. The shipping charges to Germany were almost 500.00 including duty. The guy knew what he was getting and never even flinched. I DO regret selling it now though.

I was in Resorts International in Atlantic City,maybe 15 years ago,when I was walking from the craps table to the mens room....I looked down and thought I saw a playing chip.Now for those of you who have never been in a casino,the carpeting in the majority of these places are very colorful with swirl patterns and intricate designs.To actually spot anything on these rug covered floors is a fete in itself.I bent down and lo and behold picked up a orange-pink colored chip.The casino gamblers out here know exactly what I picked up.Yes a $10,000 chip.At first,I didn`t think it was real because it was slightly bigger then the $1,$5,$25,$100,and $500 chips they use.After the realization that it was indeed real,I went to the men`s room to relieve myself and to do some thinking.Should I turn it in to the cashiers cage or should I keep it? Well after much thought,I decided to get a room and sleep on it.The next day while playing craps,and still not sure what to do,I overheard 2 pit-bosses talking about a "high-roller" who the night before won $235,000 playing blackjack.He quit playing because he was getting drunk and lost 2 $10,000 chips somewhere.Right then and there I said to myself....the he11 with it....I`m keeping this chip.Looking back,it probably wasn`t the right thing to do but I made my choice and have to live with it.One small note...I used that chip to play some more craps that day,and left Resorts with around $29,000.Not bad for just taking down $300 the night before.