Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss
I think the buyer and seller negotiated and agreed on a deal. Nobody was compelled or under pressure to do the deal. The deal included individual price negotiation on each card and then a bulk discount.
I don’t think either is an asshole, but I certainly think seller was under no obligation to accommodate and I think his all or nothing (after the fact) offer, was more than fair.
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Well summarized.
Back in the mid-1980s, just as Kirby Puckett's 1985 Topps cards were taking off, one of my regular buyers from New York called about them. He knew I broke cases, and he knew centering varied, as he'd purchased cards in bulk quantities from me before. We haggled a bit on price, and finally I said I'd sell them all to him if he'd take every one I had, at $1.00 each. I gave him the approximate quantity range, and we had a deal.
In the next couple of days, as I was pulling them all together, it became obvious to me that the price of Pucketts was on the move. But, as in past deals with this guy and others, I kept my word and shipped him every Puckett I had. All had sharp corners, fresh from vending.
After they arrived, he called to tell me he was buying about 300 of them and returning the other hundred or so that weren't well centered. This really annoyed me, to say the least. When I reminded him the price negotiated was based on him taking them all, he complained that he could only sell the worst of them for a dollar at the shows he attended. This really set me off. "Then sell the worst ones at break-even, and make your tidy profit on the best ones," I said. By then the card was selling hot at $3.00 or more and rising fast.
His reply: "How about this; I'll buy them all and we'll just never do business again." I said, fine, and although he'd been a nice guy and one of my favorite customers to hear from, we never communicated again.