Took me 5 weekends to find a working cassette deck at flea markets in Ohio
I got into taping old radio shows off a boombox and needed a deck to play them back. Figured it would take one Saturday at the Springfield flea market, but every unit I found had a shot belt or eaten rollers, and I passed on about 14 of them. Drove out to a swap meet in Dayton on week five and got a clean Sony for $12 from a guy who tested it right there on a tape of his own. What is the one piece of old gear you kept hunting for way longer than you thought?