I hear what Chadrock is saying. Promotion of the hobby is both a blessing and a curse. I'm 28 so I skew towards the younger end of the hobby. I've been into it since I was 13, but by the time I had enough disposible income to really go out and try to find some stuff, a lot of the stuff in the wild is gone. What's left, people usually think is made out of solid gold, like the rusted out 5 foot Bennett I found near me the the old guy said was worth "thousands". People watch things like Barrett Jackson, Antiques Roadshow, etc and know that whatever they have is worth "something" but usually you end up coming up against the $2000 Wayne 80 rather than the $100 Husky can.

Also agree with hillsideshortleg. While I do work in an office in the services sector, I also appreciate doing things with my own two hands. I change my own oil, I fix my small engines when they break down, I fix stuff in my house when it goes wrong. I call a professional when I find I can't do something and don't have a friend who knows how. I really find that this is an oddity within my generation. I have a friend or two like me, but most look at me funny when they see how many tools I have, when I say I'm renting a boom lift to trim my trees rather than having a tree service come do it for me. I don't know what exactly happened with my generation, I guess I was the first video game generation?

While it's still lots of fun getting stuff from other collectors, meeting people, going to shows, etc, I wish I had come along a little sooner when there was still more "hunting" to be done out in the country.