Multiple criteria subtotals to find top 10

Hi all,

I have a large set of data that looks very roughly like this with many different values in each column.

Type	Category	Item	Sales	Quarter	Year
Book	Adventure	123	100	2	2010
Book	Adventure	123	100	1	2011
Book	Adventure	123	200	2	2010
Book	Adventure	321	200	2	2010
Book	Adventure	321	300	2	2010
Book	Adventure	444	100	2	2010
Book	Adventure	444	100	2	2010

What I would like to do is find the top 10 items in order of sales for a specified type/category/quarter/year combination. So for Adventure Books for Q2 2010, which items had the most sales; subtotal those sales and present the top 10 items with sales on a separate worksheet, ala

Item	Sales
321	500
123	300
444	200

Can somebody point me in the proper direction by mentioning some formulas, VBA, logic that you would start with? Let's say no PivotTable suggestions please and I'd prefer if you just didn't post what you thought was the right formula/VBA - I'd like to learn with a little push from you.