Anyone ever contact previous owners of domains to try and find out what the current owner paid for them to see what they could realistically be bought for?
That doesn't seem like the best idea since the current owner probably wants to make more money than they paid to get the domain As for the domain history, there are many simple tools you could use to look at link history, but I have yet to hear of anything that lets you find out everything about a domain's history.
I have seen some paid services posted, but have also heard of the same information being free. As far as what the current owner paid, you never know, if they will just dump it to get rid of it, or if they really plan on making a nice return on the flip, but figured it may at least give me a starting point etc. Anyone else?
I agree - it might be worth a try to contact the previous owner. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a good answer, but shouldn't take much of your time to try. Domainface.com is a service that has lots of historical information.
Try way back machine search on google for it, will get a lot of history even what the website looked like