This one happened some years ago, but it's my favorite cheap calf story (and I've got several of 'em). One of our neighbors had weaned their calves, and they were penned right beside a road I traveled at least twice a day. One steer kept catching my eye, so after a few days I stopped to take a look - now these folks were in no way trying to raise show cattle, but had a daughter that had shown some Maine heifers several years before that. This calf happened to be out of a daughter of one of the old Maine show heifers (who was sired by a Highlander bull, btw) and another neighbors Chi-Angus bull. I asked the lady if she'd be willing to sell him, she said she would, but she'd really rather we just trade her another calf. The one I brought her was prob'ly 150 pounds heavier, and I had to refuse her offer to pay me some difference!
This was my neice's senior year, and this steer went on to stand second behind the grand steer at Tulsa - she also had another breed champion ($850 from another neighbor), so we took him on to Kansas City where he stood third in a class where the judge said you could swap the top four steers around any way and he couldn't argue (the class winner was reserve 4H steer that day and the fourth place steer went on to win Louisville). She had another third place steer that day as well (home raised), so we pulled this one out of the premium sale and took him to Denver where he ended up second in his class (we did sell him there). That's lots of fun out of a basically market priced steer. Oh yeah, and she finished out the year with an $1100 steer that was reserve grand at county and won his class at Oklahoma City. Granted, all this was twenty-ish years ago, but those were still very inexpensive cattle at the time.