my best deal was my big boy, paid 30.00$ it was sitting on a table at a swap meet, covered in dust and cat hair. bought it as a round house queen, but to my suprise all it needed was a little cleaning and now its my pride & joy
I just got a Con_Cor 2-8-8-2 for $95 on a buy it now deal at ebay. Claimed had never been ran.When I got it the motor was frozen. I tinkered with it and got it to run. After a breakin period it runs fine.
RK, I know the feeling, I stumbled across a LL mallet last week with a BIN of $90. I wasn't sure what I would end up with. It arrived Tuesday and was imaculate. It maybe had an hour or so run time on it. I just went through the clean up and break in proceedure on an original early run NIB ConCor/Riv Mallet, although I didn't get as good a deal as you, $165.