Pricing of Items

[srossio]

I have always been a person who likes to see items priced at military shows, etc. I feel that prices help give me a ball-park as to what the seller is looking for...which then helps me to know if I can even make an offer on their items.

Well, funny story...

I recently attended a local postcard show. While looking through the various dealer's items I came across one gentleman who had a large separate box of only U.S. military images from WWI and WWII. The images were very nice and were clearly priced on their backs with prices ranging from .50 cents to 2 or 3 dollars. I found twelve that I thought would fit nicely in my collection and added them up. The total came to 15 dollars or just over a dollar an image...not a bad score! Well, the dealer had been watching me and he stated "don't look at the prices as they aren't mine. I just bought this collection. My prices will be cheaper."

"Wow! Cheaper!?" I thought..."this is great."

 

He then takes my stack of 12 images and he goes through it once, twice, three times and then he separates the images into three piles. He tells me that the first pile of 2 is thirty-five dollars, the second pile of 3 is forty-five dollars and the final pile of 7 (he will cut me a break) is fifty dollars. Grand total for 12 images...130.00 dollars. Now I want to be clear...I have no problem paying $10 for an excellent, rare image. These were nice images but they were not $130.00 nice by far! That big price, coupled with the low prices on the backs...and his previous statement had me completely confused!

I pointed out that...well...I was confused.

He became un-hinged. His reply began with a lecture on historic value and then quickly degraded into him yelling about me ripping him off. Two other patrons at his table were so shocked they set down what they were looking at and walked away. Once the shock wore off I did the same thing and then contaced the event organizer, which I wouldn't normally do. I watched from a distance as the organizer spoke with the gentleman who then very loudly removed the box of images from the table while ripping the head off of the organizer.

A 1/2 hour later as I came back by his table it was empty - he had left.

 

Postscript - Every other table I went to that day had their postcards and images etc. clearly priced, the people were great to deal with and I found some excellent items.

Just one of those amusing things we collectors face daily!

 

Steve

[Mitter2k1]

I love when that happens. I was at an antique mall and came across a case that had a box that said all items $1.50. So I asked the nice lady at the counter to unlock it so I could dig through the box and the case. I found some nice, unused WWII chevrons and a few smalls that I wanted. So I picked them out and handed them to the lady and told her I would pay when I finished. Around 5 minutes later another lady that was working tracked me down and said I needed to come up front. She told me I couldn't have some of the items because they were not for sale. I said "excuse me, what do you mean?" She said that the box only applied to patches. I told her that it was what was in the box and the original lady agreed. So she got flat out mouthy with me and said she would call the guy that has the booth. I told her to suit herself and while she's doing that, I'm going back to doing what I was doing. So 10 minutes later her she came with a handful of the stuff in question. She promptly yelled at me and said the owner didn't appreciate me trying to rip him off, but he would sell the items at a higher price. She said that she should kick me out and ban me for that behavior. I promptly laughed and asked if I could talk to her when I finished. She barked at me and said I was seconds from being tossed out and that the ribbon bars, medal and other misc. stuff belonged on a uniform that was hanging beside the case. I said that's unlikely since that was a USMC uniform and the stuff I picked out was Army. She said I knew nothing and to come up front and she would prove it. She had Vietnam era army greens on a mannequin and it was decked out to the gills. So she started my lesson on this and that of the military and when she finished, I picked her apart. I pointed out 7 or 8 things wrong with her put together mess and she turned red and mouthed off for her final time. I told her shut her mouth and show a little respect to everyone and maybe she wouldn't die cold and alone with only her body to feed her hundreds of cats after she's gone. And maybe some other choice words that I usually reserve for elite idiots or people that really rub me the wrong way. I apologized to the original lady, said good day and walked out. I haven't been back since and don't plan on it. It's a shame really since they had a bunch of stuff I would of bought. That has been the only place that has done that to me and I will not return. I have dealt with that around gun shows for years. There is always something that seems too good to be true. I had it happen with a rife that was originally $300 and magically became $600 in a matter of seconds. The excuse I got that time was the seller bought it years ago and put it in the safe and only recently decided to sell it. He said that he forgot to take off the old price tag and I asked if he did this with all of the guns someone shows interest in. Well that set him off, and like you, I told the promoters and they looked into it. Nothing was done so it ended there. So I never forgot his face and I won't even look at his table. Got to love it, right?

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

 

 

[Patriot]

I encounter this a lot at flea markets. I once found a British made US WWII canteen, and of course I was very interested. When I asked about the price, he removed it from the table, explaining that it was reserved for someone else. If an item is reserved, TAKE IT OFF THE TABLE!

[Johnny Signor]

It's funny how it's not worth much when it just sits in a display or on a table , but the minute someone comes up and shows an interest the price suddenly goes up , yeah back in the day when I used to collect there were some "dealers" that I would see at shows etc ,and as soon as you'd show an interest in something (usually not priced) they'd hemmm and Hawww and well I think I'll need to get $$$$$$$$$$$ for this and that , there's usually one or two like this at any shop/show , and what's worse quite a few of them really don't even know what they have let alone it's real value ...............................................

[Dave]

It doesn't just happen with used stuff at shows. I had this happen to me in a store last Memorial Day weekend.

 

I was in said store and noticed some items in a bin that was marked 50% off. The items were things that my kids really like and so I bought about a dozen of them. (I always thought they were stupidly priced "at retail", so being 50% off took the sting out of buying them!) So I get up to the front and am checking out. Instead of the 50% off price, the items rang up at full value. I asked the lady if the discount was going to be given at the end of checkout and she looked at me and said: "What discount? These aren't on sale." So I politely pointed out to her that I had gotten them out of a basket that was marked "50% off" and that there were still several of them in the basket if she'd like to go look (I didn't want to be greedy and buy them all, which helped in this case!) The lady turned to another cashier and asked if the items were on sale. The other cashier shook her head. I insisted to the cashier that they were, indeed, from that basket, and offered to point out the basket to her. So, we walked over to the basket with the sale items, and sure enough, the remaining ones were still there. She told me: "Well, those aren't supposed to be on sale right now." So I gave her my best "Hey, it's not my fault" look and motioned over to her manager, so she could get the manager involved. So the manager came over, looked at the items, told me they weren't on sale. I explained the situation to her and got an eye roll and a sigh. "Okay" she said "you can have them for 50% off". Whew.

 

As I was standing at the register, I noticed the sale flyer for the store saying that there was an "Additional 20% off for all active duty military and veterans". So, when the lady was done ringing me up (including the 50% off) I politely took out my VA card and asked for my 20% additional discount as well.

 

Oh, if I only had a camera to record the moment. Priceless. Absolutely priceless.

 

Dave

[srossio]

Nice one Dave!

I remembered another one that involved a small grouping of items in a locked display case. Everything else was priced in the case except for this. The mall owner called the dealer and described the group (which was unusual). The dealer said that they would have to look at it before they would price it. When this was told to me I responded that I was from out of town (about four hours away) and would not be back by for months. The owner relayed the information to the dealer who stated that it didn't matter they would have to look at it. They then went on to state that they had problems with people removing price tags to get better prices, etc. Their tone over the speaker phone showed me that they felt I had removed the tag in an attempt to rip them off. The poor mall owner gave me the look of "this person is always like this..." so I told them I was no longer interested and that I would never buy something from their booth in the future.

 

The funny part is that about four months later I was back in the area and went through the mall. The group was still there. I asked to see as I was curious about the price figuring it was off the scale...guess what, still no price!

 

Steve