I understand the feeling. The seven gifts medal about broke me. I looked at100s of auction every couple of days. In the end, it popped based on search terms, not looking at every auction for religious medals. Maybe there's a lesson there(?). The whole prop may not be the hardest thing to find but its certainly up there with other grail type searches.
On that note, I saw Adam Savage talk about Objects and the Art of Obsession at Maker Faire some years ago. I found inspiration and a "Eureka" moment that day. He finishes his talk by saying:
"And then, maybe then, I'll be able to achieve the end of this exercise. But really if were all going to be honest with ourselves, I have to admit that achieving the end of the exercise was never the point of the exercise to begin with."
Its a fun watch...highly recommend it.