I've briefly described my ownership story before but here goes:
I moved to NC in the Spring of '03 and quickly realized that my new home would afford me the opportunity to enjoy a motorcycle again. I could turn left out of my new neighborhood and go to Virginia on miles and miles of scenic country two lanes roads through charming towns. I had sold my Triumph in Atlanta before I was really ready to and in the next ten years since, the town blew up into a traffic and congestion monster--didn't make me want to ride. So anyway, I decided to go HD this time around and read two books about them to educate myself as to the models and features. From my Brit-bike days I knew I wanted good handling so the books convinced me to look for a FXR. At this point, I had never heard of the CVO or FXR2's, 3's, or 4's.
After not having much luck looking for a un-molested production FXR, I went to a local indy shop in Raleigh (Bikers Boulevard, good place) to look at a used Dyna they had advertised. Over to the side of the showroom was what was soon to be my FXR2. They had just gotten it on consignment and hadn't advertised it yet. I kept going back and forth, because the Dyna was newer, had fewer miles on it, and cost the same, but the shop owner was openly more enthusiastic about the FXR2 (I came to find later that he was still riding his 1992 FXR, himself). I sat on it, he rolled it outside and started it and I was sold. Bought it the next day, after reviewing my books. Steve, the owner of the shop (remember, this was not a HD dealer) gave me a detailed verbal history of the CVO to date and explained the FXR2's place in it much better than any info I ever got from a dealer. He had previously sold two other FXR2's and none had ever been on his floor for a full week. Mine made it 3 days.
He takes photos of all his buyers and covers the walls of the showroom with 8x10's. If you go there, my picture is about waist high about the middle of the showroom wall. Another FXR2 buyer is higher towards the door. Some months later, they had a blue FXR3 (first one I ever saw) on consignment. It had ridiculously few miles on it--Steve told me that the original owner took it home from the dealer, put it in his basement rec room and never rode it. I briefly considered trying to trade, and sort of wish I had, now. I had no idea then of their rarity. He told me later that a guy from Alabama had heard about it and bought it over the phone.
So anyway, I can't claim to have made a systematic search for a CVO bike, I sort of stumbled onto it. But I'm quite glad I did.