Okay, back to the subject. Watching some guys buzz canyon walls around Santa Paula in a Stearman is fun to see but hardly pertinent.
I did encounter a very nice Cruisair once for 12k - a VERY nice one - but it turned out to involve something rather illegal. The seller buys airplanes, never turns in the Bills of Sale, hides them, and dumps them whenever they might be discovered (California taxes such things and they have folks poking around airports looking). He had no pilots license under the name he gave me, wanted cash, and so forth. He had a much higher value airplane he said he needed to "get inside" and wanted rid of the Bellanca in a hurry. I passed because I didn't really have any proof the aircraft even belonged to this guy and didn't have any proof he was even based where he was showing the aircraft to me.
The person who did buy it showed up at Columbia one year with his son. Perfectly legitimate fellow, having a good time with his airplane. He submitted his Bill of Sale and had plenty of questions to answer when the seller's name turned out to be fictitious. Another example of the "if it's too good to be true" principle. At least it was not a stolen aircraft, even though there is a common scam involving people passing stolen aircraft off onto people by asking absurdly low prices, or sellers who got burned when the buyer never submitted the Bill of Sale, used the airplane as a drug runner, dumped it, the DEA found it, and traced it back to the seller who had probably done nothing remotely illegal in his entire life.
Just more variations on a theme, of course, but this was one you won't find in any aircraft buying guide, that's for sure.
Jonathan
Sorry...it's a FAT one. You really need broadband for it, alas.