The Philosophy of the "Steal"

[Kaputnik]

So what about a converse situation? Instead of being the buyer, you're the seller. Suppose you offered an item on eBay, and the bidding got out of hand. The winning bid is significantly more than the average market value. Do you contact the buyer and offer to let them pay a more reasonable price?

I raised that question earlier in the thread, but nobody answered. Maybe too far off the original topic, but I've been thinking about it because I do plan to try some eBay selling later in this new year, selling off some of my surplus pens, and some other collectible/vintage items that I have.

Now I think that what will happen in most cases, particularly until I have a record as an eBay seller, is that I will get much lower prices than I'd hoped for on most items. Which will be okay; I just want some money back on items that I would probably never use again. I'll probably put a few items up on forum classifieds as well.

But say I'm selling one of my Parker 21s, which I think ought to bring in about $20 plus postage. If it went for $40, I'd probably say nothing. If two people got into a silly bidding war and it went for $150, I think I would probably contact the "winner" and offer him a chance to back out, telling him that unless he knew something I didn't, he was overpaying hugely. Until that situation actually comes up though, I can't prove anything about how I would act.

[Quantum Sailor]

So what about a converse situation? Instead of being the buyer, you're the seller. Suppose you offered an item on eBay, and the bidding got out of hand. The winning bid is significantly more than the average market value. Do you contact the buyer and offer to let them pay a more reasonable price?

I raised that question earlier in the thread, but nobody answered. Maybe too far off the original topic, but I've been thinking about it because I do plan to try some eBay selling later in this new year, selling off some of my surplus pens, and some other collectible/vintage items that I have.

Now I think that what will happen in most cases, particularly until I have a record as an eBay seller, is that I will get much lower prices than I'd hoped for on most items. Which will be okay; I just want some money back on items that I would probably never use again. I'll probably put a few items up on forum classifieds as well.

But say I'm selling one of my Parker 21s, which I think ought to bring in about $20 plus postage. If it went for $40, I'd probably say nothing. If two people got into a silly bidding war and it went for $150, I think I would probably contact the "winner" and offer him a chance to back out, telling him that unless he knew something I didn't, he was overpaying hugely. Until that situation actually comes up though, I can't prove anything about how I would act.

To a certain degree the value of any antique is whatever someone is willing to pay. In fact the value of anything is whatever someone is willing to pay. If I have unlimited money and I want something what do I care how much the price goes for. If I have limited money and there is something else attached to that item, say a relative that was special to me owned that exact model and I can't find it anywhere else then it is still worth that much to me.

I think the big problem that a lot of people have is that capitalism is both good and bad. Everyone wants to think that there is a "fair" market value for something. However there is not. There is a market value that the market will support.

Consider for example the fast food workers wanting 15 an hour. Many people think that is ridiculous but honestly if they strike and manage to get 15 an hour that's not ridiculous that is negotiating a wage in the open market and is technically how it is supposed to work so I say more power to them. Solution if you don't like it is don't buy fast food. If they all go out of business and everyone loses their job then again thats the market working as it should. While this is a digression from the original topic I actually think it goes to the heart of the matter.

No matter what price you pay unless you do something illegal then it is technically the market working as it should, unless you get into monopolies and such but we are not here. If you embrace true capitalism then all is right with the world in any scenario listed because it is what the market supported. But then true capitalism isn't always nice and at least in the U.S. we don't really want true capitalism we want things how we think they should work and everybody has a happy ending as long as they've earned it by some unknown measure of worth.

[mrcharlie]

Back in early 2012 I was low-ball bidding old Sheaffer ink bottles that looked like they had usable ink in them and rust free lids. I got one of them for less (price + shipping) than the seller spent sending it to me; it sold with only my first bid, and she'd probably underestimated the shipping weight when listing it, or assumed it would bring in enough $ to list it with free shipping and still be okay.

After I received the item, I sent a thank you note with $5 (I think; at least $3) so she didn't actually lose money on the deal even assuming the bottle was free to her. The total price (what I paid plus what I sent with the note) was within a quarter or so of my max bid on the item anyway.

I think that is about the limit of time/money I'd spend unrequested to help a seller who hadn't educated themselves on what the real re-sale value of something is before selling it.

I'd think badly of someone who was contacted to help an inheritor liquidate their relatives' former possessions and took advantage of the situation to buy some of it and way below market. I don't think badly about others or feel badly about myself for buying something at below market because the seller didn't know what they had when listing it (I've had some good deals but nothing approaching a >$100 USD pen for 10% or less of its realistic used market price). The time a knowledgeable person spends so they can buy or sell at a min/max price is not free. You only have so much time in your life. People who make a living or supplement their income "buying and selling" often consciously trade maximizing the selling price of any individual item for making a reasonable profit with minimal time spent multiplied by many items. People who are cleaning out a relative's "stuff" after they are dead or in a home often just want/need to deal with it all as efficiently (time, not money/income) as possible.

I've made unsolicited comments to people selling something for far less than it was worth, and it was not appreciated. Sometimes it will be, but far from always.

That said, if I were an MB expert (I'm not) and I saw a $1000+ pen being listed with a BIN price of less than $100 and was sure it wasn't a fake, I'd probably send them a note letting them know. Or I'd buy it. I'm really not sure which.

[Rusty888]

That said, if I were an MB expert (I'm not) and I saw a $1000+ pen being listed with a BIN price of less than $100 and was sure it wasn't a fake, I'd probably send them a note letting them know. Or I'd buy it. I'm really not sure which.

I'd buy it

[manoeuver]

So what about a converse situation? Instead of being the buyer, you're the seller. Suppose you offered an item on eBay, and the bidding got out of hand. The winning bid is significantly more than the average market value. Do you contact the buyer and offer to let them pay a more reasonable price?

I raised that question earlier in the thread, but nobody answered. Maybe too far off the original topic, but I've been thinking about it because I do plan to try some eBay selling later in this new year, selling off some of my surplus pens, and some other collectible/vintage items that I have.

Now I think that what will happen in most cases, particularly until I have a record as an eBay seller, is that I will get much lower prices than I'd hoped for on most items. Which will be okay; I just want some money back on items that I would probably never use again. I'll probably put a few items up on forum classifieds as well.

But say I'm selling one of my Parker 21s, which I think ought to bring in about $20 plus postage. If it went for $40, I'd probably say nothing. If two people got into a silly bidding war and it went for $150, I think I would probably contact the "winner" and offer him a chance to back out, telling him that unless he knew something I didn't, he was overpaying hugely. Until that situation actually comes up though, I can't prove anything about how I would act.

To a certain degree the value of any antique is whatever someone is willing to pay. In fact the value of anything is whatever someone is willing to pay. If I have unlimited money and I want something what do I care how much the price goes for. If I have limited money and there is something else attached to that item, say a relative that was special to me owned that exact model and I can't find it anywhere else then it is still worth that much to me.

I think the big problem that a lot of people have is that capitalism is both good and bad. Everyone wants to think that there is a "fair" market value for something. However there is not. There is a market value that the market will support.

Consider for example the fast food workers wanting 15 an hour. Many people think that is ridiculous but honestly if they strike and manage to get 15 an hour that's not ridiculous that is negotiating a wage in the open market and is technically how it is supposed to work so I say more power to them. Solution if you don't like it is don't buy fast food. If they all go out of business and everyone loses their job then again thats the market working as it should. While this is a digression from the original topic I actually think it goes to the heart of the matter.

No matter what price you pay unless you do something illegal then it is technically the market working as it should, unless you get into monopolies and such but we are not here. If you embrace true capitalism then all is right with the world in any scenario listed because it is what the market supported. But then true capitalism isn't always nice and at least in the U.S. we don't really want true capitalism we want things how we think they should work and everybody has a happy ending as long as they've earned it by some unknown measure of worth.

eeeh, yes and no. I agree that an item is worth exactly what somebody's willing to pay for it. But the market doesn't work perfectly. If it did there would be no deals and you couldn't make any money reselling anything.

Hence the original thread, which might as well been titled, "Pens you got far below any reasonably assumed market value." Getting a sweet MB for $50 doesn't mean the market value is $50 if any number of pen people who would have happened upon that pen would have bid it up into more familiar territory. This while thing is about escaping from 'market value' through some loophole, wormhole or other means.

[pajaro]

Selling off an accumulation of Parker 51s several years ago I was trying to figure out how to market them to get bids on the pens but not give them away. A 51 with a filler with the plating flaking off, that I told the buyers had problems and counseled them to not bid much, sold for $50. I should have just offered it at a BIN for $5. A forest green 51 in user grade went for $90 in an auction. A NOS 51 pen and pencil set went for $23. You win some, you lose some.

I bought an NOS 51 labeled as Plum in 2004 for $125, BIN. The pen was burgundy. I offered it as NOS Burgundy in an auction with a BIN for $125, and it sold BIN for the $125. It was immaculate, with a gold filled clip, the buyer knew exactly the history because I told him, but he was happy.

Selling collectibles to dealers is another story. Dealers never want to pay more than 5% of the value, in my experience. They do have overhead, but those guys often want a steal, and you are warned. I have sometimes sold postage stamps to dealers, mainly when I was going to school and needed cash fast, and so I converted some purchases to a pittance to fill a need. A prof bought my collection of German stamps for $50. Catalog value $1500, market value about $600, implications about grading were mentioned. In the 1960s you sometimes had to grin and bear it. Subsequently the college closed the German department, and he was on the street, so sometimes Karma intervenes. All in all I liked the guy for whatever reasons. When he and his wife were hit by a bus while making a U-turn on a 4-lane highway, and their kids had to go back to Germany, because that's where the nearest relative lived, I did feel bad for them. You have to be alarmed at the operations of Karma, though, and such things make me want to be above board at all times.

[jar]

Each instance is unique and there is no hard an fast rules that I am aware of. Let me give a couple examples.

Not too many years ago I bought what was advertised as a Montegrappa Classica from a pretty well known fountain pen seller whose pens often sell at a premium. When the pen arrived it was not a Classica but the far less common limited edition Historia. The dealer had several more for sale and I contacted him, explained what had happened, offered to pay more and suggested he should reprice the other Historias. He did not want more money but thanked me and did pull the remaining Historias and listed them at closer (but still undervalued) prices in his next quarterly auction.

A second instance involved a spring sale at a Montblanc Boutique. They had a half price sale on Bohèmes and I ordered one. When it arrived though it was not a Bohème but the far rarer first edition Rouge et Noir. In that case I immediately contacted the salesman I had dealt with, told him I had licked the pen and invoked the "No Takebacks rule".

So why two different responses and behaviors? In the first case I was dealing with an individual who was handling a wide variety of products and might reasonably be expected not to know about the special editions from a smaller maker like Montegrappa. In the second case though I was dealing with the manufacturer and since they had been sued over the issuance of that particular model and had claimed to have pulled them from stock over a decade earlier I felt no responsibility to not take advantage of their error.

[kirchh]

Selling collectibles to dealers is another story. Dealers never want to pay more than 5% of the value, in my experience.

Pen dealers?

--Daniel