Ray,
I know what you mean. I ran into a similar situation. When the first 1971 Raleigh Catalogue in FIVE YEARS (a FULL catalogue, not the abbreviated 4-page brochure) showed up on ebay 2 months ago. I bid $87.50 AND LOST THE BIDDING WAR.
So, I bribed the owner to send me photographs of the catalogue (unfortunately, he did not own a scanner). You might try that technique if you lose again ...
- Don Gillies San Diego, CA
P.S. I've been out of the country, but plan to convert the RAW canon files to JPEGs and post them to http://www.bulgier.net in about a month. Some of them need contrast enhancements and rotations, etc.