I once had a guy actually MAIL me a trio of old and RARE 45s so I could copy them onto my computer, clean up the tracks and them dump them onto a CD. I couldn't believe anyone would actually do that, and was a nervous wreck until I heard he'd gotten them back safely! (He plays in several bands, too, and sent me several unreleased things I was missing to include on a comp as well.)
A couple years back, I was looking for sources of old comics to scan. My comics-shop owner, who might be described as a "neurotic nutcase", told me that under NO circumstances would ANYTHING ever leave his house, ever. I told him he could bring stuff over and watch as I scanned it, but no. I tried passing on the request to some others of his customers, but the general response was "too busy to find anything".
Fortunately, for awhile, I was able to get a pile of cover scans from another fan, though he could be on the cranky side sometimes.
More recently, I found the Heritage Auction site, and that's been an amazing source of material.
There's gaps, of course... and just last week I wound up downloading a comic FROM HERE to get a decent scan of the cover. That worked as a start. It took about 3 WHOLE DAYS (taking into account I'm working in the daytime) to do a really thorough "restoration", which is now posted at Nick Simon's SILVER AGE MARVEL site.
I'd like to include a "thank you" to "FreddyFly" (whoever that may be!) for the scan.