Is the one with the yellow symbol a newer print or a knockoff?
It's an earlier mispressing... I think it was on the first pressings from the UK and maybe Korea or something? It wasn't supposed to be yellow, but the yellow ones are still legit.
How do you guys find the obscure stuff....like the IaW vinyl, for example? Just wait for it to crop up on ebay or something? I'm not really sure how the "hunting" process works...
Sometimes I'll hear/see something come up, but I usually don't care at the moment. Do you usually buy something anyway, since you have the opportunitye, in hopes that you will want it later?
I usually just keep an eye on ebay and look for stuff with good prices. If its somethign super obscure I'll usually try to grab it when I can... but with stuff that pops up semi-regularly or even only once in a while, I lean more towards hunting for good prices.
Some tips that definitely help -
1) Run the occasional "titles and descriptions" search. Sometimes you'll find some rare stuff that way that isn't listed in the auction title. (That's how I snagged my original, still-sealed WDADU longbox CD. Some guy was selling a bunch of old longboxes and that one was thrown into the mix).
2) Make sure you search is set to include items from international sellers.
3) Run the occasional search for "Dream Theatre". People mispell the name all the time, and sometime you can find stuff that way that most buyers miss by only searching "Dream Theater".