The other day, I bought an estate lot of transistors, with no idea of what I was getting, for $32. They had numbers taped on them, but they were all over the place, so figured they weren't hFe.
Anyway, they all just arrived. . . turns out they are all great-condition 2n404. I have tested 50 of the 300-400 trannies. Only 3 were outside the range of 70 to 130 hFe, with leakage of less than .1. Can't believe my luck on this score!