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Notes -
That's why I think it's better to collect stuff where the hard to find stuff is just harder to find and not necessarily more valuable. Consider record collecting. If you're looking for that super-rare Beatles UK first pressing then yeah, you're going to pay an arm and a leg for it, because The Beatles are one of the most popular bands in history and there are a lot of fans vying for the collectibles. On the other hand, if you're trying to collect the complete discography of an independent record company, most of the stuff you're going to have trouble tracking down is the stuff that didn't sell well and accordingly doesn't have a lot of demand; it's the kind of stuff that record stores price at a buck when it comes in (usually as part of a large auction lot) so it isn't sitting on the shelves for a decade. I love Bruce Cockburn and I buy original Canadian pressings of his records when I can find them (though the American ones are of higher quality) but I think the most I've paid for an album is like $7.00. This is the kind of guy who's incredible but little known; a bought a few of his records at a well-known used record store in Pittsburgh and the owner got excited and told me he intentionally marked the records down in the hope that someone would become a fan based on price alone.
On the other hand, while E-Bay has complicated the market a bit, it really hasn't changed that much. While E-Bay has made it more likely for someone who doesn't know what they have to get top dollar for a collectible because they happened to list it at the right time, you can still find deals the old-fashioned way if you have the patience. Most of the old garage sale finds are still garage sale finds unless you're talking about baseball cards or Star Wars toys or Christmas Tree ornaments or any of the other items that seem to only exist as collectibles. If someone has a painting they're under the impression their mother bought at a starving artist's expo in 1966 they aren't going to go to the hassle of listing it individually on E-Bay on the off chance that it's worth something. If you're eagle-eyed and happen to discover that it's actually a Whistler, then you've made the score. In the pre-Ebay days, most of the stuff that anyone thought of having any value was either sold through dealers or through listings in specialized collector's magazines. I'd estimate that the number of people selling genuinely valuable stuff at flea markets, garage sales, and the like isn't that much lower than it was in the '90s.
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