I've been very lucky. I picked up a slighly overpriced Red Tent ($200), a few months ago. After that a non populated single monitor PC-10 board. The tent was a wrecked, but i'm doing a refurb. Last week I picked up 2 vs. boards that are fully populated. Plus, most the iners to two vs systems including Monitors. Indications suggest, one side was converted to a PC-10. Got a score board for that conversion. Sadly no harness or power supply for the conversion. I got the PC-10 board too. Which was half populated.
Today I picked up four acrade machines. Time Pilot (?), Sega Turbo (Dedicated), Kung Fu Masters (Conversion, I think) and Donkey kong Jr. (Dedicated) for $390 including transportation. I spent 7 hours today going and getting them home. 3 plus hours driving, 1 plus hours running around etc for stuff. The rest was packing and unpacking the units.
All the units have something wrong with it. Either alot of asthetic issues (decals etc) or needs new/replacement parts (CP, Keys or Monitor). I gauge them all as Fair, perhaps DK jr as fair/good. Within hours I contacted a few friends. I traded Time Pilot, Turbo and KF Masters as restore projects, for a Dual Monitor PC-10 with a fully populated board. Which is something I really wanted in the first place. Hope to finish that trade tomorrow.
I would have to also agree with your statment. Being hard to find anything and most ppl want way to much for what they have. I'm lucky that I happened to talk to pervious acrade companies in my region. I wont beable to get cabinets, but I am hoping to get the ablity to go through there parts warehouse which has several danmaged or destroyed cabinets. Might beable to get some intresting stuff. Time will tell.