I've never paid for a scope.
I got my first scope from work when they were throwing a load of old things away. It was an old Gould scope with a bandwidth of only 1MHz. It sort of broke and then suddenly decided to start working but it's still temperamental, the brightness of the display oscillates slightly.
My latest scope is a Telequipment US model, which is a pain because it requires a 110V transformer. It has a bandwidth of only 2MHz. I got it from a colleague, it's quite a nice scope.