The Long Search is Over!

[Mofo Rising]

This can be about anything, books, records, movies...

What have you searched for for years and years and was never able to find, and then, by almost happenstance, you came upon a copy of and all was right with the world?

In my teenage years, I was a huge fan of Robert Anton Wilson. I still am, although I'm not quite as fanatic as I used to be. At any rate, he wrote a series of books called the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. I read and loved the first two books, but the series became out of print (probably as soon as they were released). For years, every used book store I went to I immediately searched for the third book. I was never able to find it.

Finally, after about five years of solid searching, I happened upon a book store where I actually found a paperback copy of the book. I purchased it for a dollar or two. I then told the proprietor that I had been searching for the book for years. I'm pretty sure he was dismayed that he had sold me the book for about a dollar. You know used bookstore owners, if he had known the book was so rare the markup would have been incredible. Nature of the business. But, by God, I had found it!

Unfortunately, the book turned out to be rather terrible. If you're not familiar with RAW, he was a drug-induced '70s philosopher. The first two books in that series were brilliant, but the third was a regurgitation of many ideas he had already put forward in his other books. Or maybe after years of reading his ideas I was more critical of them and less inclined to accept them in fiction form. Hard to tell.

At any rate, my long search was over, and for better or worse I obtained what had been my used Holy Grail.

So what are the stories you have for something you spent years searching for and then finally found? Did it end well? Did the goal of the search match your expectations? Or was it the search itself that kept you on?

[hellbilly]

For ages I have been searching for Brownmark's Good Loving CD which was released back in 1989. This year I was finally able to track down the disc on amazon's marketplace, still new & sealed, for a reasonable price. I was jumping with joy for days 

This year I also found a near mint CD of Sue Ann - Blue Velvet (1988). Another rare one I've been hunting for quite some time.

I'm still on the lookout for Bernard Edward's "Glad To Be Here" album from 1983. It was released on CD in Japan in the early 1990s. Last time I checked some seller was asking for $300 

[Trevor]

I'm still searching for a copy (VHS, DVD, any format) of Pete Walker's House of The Long Shadows. A genuine copy that is, not a DVDR  or a bad VHS.

MGM owns the Cannon Films' library ~ why don't they release it? 

[Trevor]

As far as literature goes, I've been searching forever for a copy of A Time To Die by Robert L Carey ~ the story of the ill-fated Shangani Patrol.

[Psycho Circus]

Found a copy of London's "Don't Cry Wolf" on LP in a record store for £4! I had been after it for 3 years.