Well, it's far short of a record but I saw the New Moon about a half hour ago (10/2/97 22:15 UT) from my driveway in San Jose. It was about 26 hours old (I think the record is 18 hours!). Of course, this was with my Meade 12" LX200 (aligned with Venus and Arcturus). It was nearly invisible even so. I could just barely see it when I moved the scope, I couldn't hold it in direct vision. Looked like one of Jay's galaxies, only bigger :-)
I also saw Mercury, which was very easy.