I don't know who all remembers the old OG eBay Search Tool that I developed a few years ago. It was essentially a page with pre-loaded search phrases like: lava lamp, lava lamps, vintage lava lamp, mathmos lava lamp, motion lamp, lavalite, lava light, and even misspellings like lave lamp, lova lamp and lavalamp. It was a great way to find hidden treasures.
Are there any other particular phrases that you like?
When I search ebay, I usually first search for "mathmos" then for "Crestworth" and if I'm really in a spending mood (or just crave a new lavalamp) I use "lavalamp" followed by a littany of exclusions, like "-pen, -34cm, -laserpod, -"chill out CD", -shoelaces, -"grumpy old men" .............." to get rid of the cheap trash lamps and other items I'm not really searching for.
I bet there's better routines, but so far I always found what I needed... (btw. for a time I tried other terms, like "Bubble Lamp", and never got any result, so I consider it an extremely rare chance to discover a real treasure that way.
So right! I do the "-night light" trick too. eBay fixed their system a bit, but in the past you used to be able to search for "lava lamps" and it would not bring up a singular"lava lamp" and visa versa. This made it easier to pick up 2, 3 or 4 lamps at a time for a good deal because most people would search for the singular. I'm continually shocked how often "lave lamp" works though. "lavalamp" has been good me too.