If you have patience, eBay is pretty solid. Steals do pop up every so often. I recently got a Savinelli Punto Oro straight brandy for 23 dollars. Was badly caked, and the rim was damaged from reaming in a small 2mm area, but after doing 2 salt alcohol treaments to purge the Captain Black Cherry from it and scrubbing the oxidation off the stem with toothpaste for an hour, it smokes very well already and I hope will only get better. I tried antique shops in new york city with no luck, there was a beaten up Connoisseur straight billiard, very large, for 33 dollars but it was a bit too steep for me since I didn't know what that pipe was worth. Figures, since Connoisseur was in NYC if I remember correctly. But yeah, I think buying in person is way too difficult to get a killer deal, perhaps the pipe show is the exception, I've never been to one. Ebay is king for steals, but there are a *ton*, and I do mean a *ton*, of bad smokers on eBay in the "beater pipe" range. It's a pipe graveyard, in some sense. You can throw away lots of money for nothing, or you can get away with highway robbery. Speaking of beater pipes, the ebay seller named "beaterpipes" has given me 2 great smokers so far, off brands: 1 Straight bulldog marked "Golden age", which could be a Comoy's Golden Age unmarked since from what I've seen, the stamp is near identical. The grain is gorgeous. 12 dollars. And also, a less known brand CB Perkins gold band prince which I smoke as I type this-- nice looking pipe and a decent smoker, also 12 dollars. I think you need to be extremely picky and do a lot of research as to which pipe seconds are, what people say about offbrands, and so on.