This may sound crazy, but it's certainly worth investigating.
Do you ever watch the the show "Pawn Stars" on the History Channel? It takes place in a Vegas pawn shop called the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Don't be scared off; it's a big and legitimate operation. They've gotten many ukes and banjoleles, often featured on the show, usually vintage stuff like Gibsons. They have experts come in to evaluate a lot of it, and they send a lot of it out to be restored. Their expert for ukes and guitars is a guy named Jesse Armoroso from a store called Cowtown Guitars (which could also be worth checking out).
It's a really interesting show, I highly recommend it. Read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars
If I were in Vegas and looking for an interesting uke I would definitely check them out.