Be patient - It'll show up eventually

My first beer stein, the one that started my modest collection, I found while digging in an old town dump during my college days (ca. 1970).  It did not have a lid (so by some definitions it was a tankard rather than a stein) but that didn't bother me because it was still a pretty neat find.  Then one day I found a picture of the same stein in Antique Steins by James R. Stevenson ... and it had a lid.  It was a rather distinctive lid: a figure of a country woman.  I still liked the stein, but there always seemed to be something missing after that.

Now we jump ahead about 30 years.  I was wandering around an antique store in Red Wing, MN (back when there were more antique stores there than there are now) and sitting on a shelf (for a mere $6) was a stein lid.  It is the only one I have ever seen that was for sale all by itself.  And it was the one I needed.  My stein is now complete!

I guess the moral is that if you have a lot of patience, you will eventually find what you are looking for.  In my case, it took only 30 years.

L-R: My original stein, the one I saw in a book, and the lid I found after 30 years.