What was the first purchase (from an auction, website, dealer, con table, etc.) that you truly felt was a "wishlist" purchase? And what did you learn from the experience that you carried with you?
To start:
I thought of this as I was changing my "Featured cel" on my RS home page. I used to use this for a recent addition, but increasingly I've been looking through my old records looking for significant anniversaries. This is a cel that I bought from the old Anime Chaos sales site (now Shopping Mall Japan) on March 9, 2001. It's Sakura dressed as the Prince in the school play version of "Sleeping Beauty" in Episode 42 of Cardcaptor Sakura, still one of my favorite anime episodes of all time.
I was still in my first year of collecting, and had maybe 8 cels. At the time, I was still entranced by the idea of having a cel, any cel, from a series I enjoyed. The idea never had occurred to me that I could ever, ever, have something really impressive, really important, from that episode, that scene, at least for any amount of money that I'd be able to put aside.
Then I happened into the AC site soon after an update, and there this cel was. And while it was much pricier than anything I'd bought before, the price was one I could afford. It really was a revelation to get it, because it made me clean up my act and get a cel book (before this, I'd kept the little stack in my closet, still in their envelopes). And it made me stop and think -- if this is possible -- then what else?
Seven years later -- still dreaming the "possible dream."
Other stories from oldsters like me (or even from newbies still tingling from your first big snag)?
Where were you jumping for joy in my living room you?
Who knew?! 
So when I purchased my first Sailor Moon cel of Sailor Moon, I was in heaven. My very first wishlist cel. 
I can really see how my tastes have changed. Please excuse the bad pic.
