I wouldn't be too jealous about the great finds - remember there are literally 100's if not 1000's of folks who post to this forum and many of them are doing things similar to you. Somebody is bound to get lucky. Law of averages and all that stuff.

I would imagine it can be frustrating. Personally I've never looked for a bike like that. I have a stored search running on eBay that will email me anything Bottecchia related that comes up and two of my bikes are from that. The rest either found me (twice guys at work just came up and asked if I wanted an old bike they had) or I just happened across them by chance.

My Panasonic was my best "find" like that - I was on my way to the plumbing supply house one Saturday morning and there are several pawn shops on that street. As I rode by I noticed a bike with drop handlebars. As I'm sure you've already discovered that is fairly unusual so I turned around and stopped. I ended up with a Panasonic PT-3500 for $30 and I use it to commute to work everyday.