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Old February 16th 07, 07:15 PM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?

On Feb 10, 10:46 am, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:
"Stone Mirror (the Great and Terrible)" wrote in
ooglegroups.com...

Based on
the listings on Bookfinder, I'd estimate the value of this book at
$225 to $250, certainly nowhere close to $430.


You may have a mistaken apprehension of the retail
market for genuinely rare books.


Absolutely true. When you are talking about a
rare collectible, the term "price gouging" is
inappropriate. On the other hand, good
business people develop a sense of what
the traffic will bear -- not so good ones price
more in accordance with their fantasies
regarding what they think they can get.

In comparison with
other goods (e.g. computers, e.g. mass-produced new
books) vendors cannot set prices in order to undercut
the competition (because these items are so scarce
that price competition seldom works.) By contrast,
haggling (bargaining) over price may be as common
as in some other markets (e.g. automobiles.)

We still do not know why you did not buy a couple
of copies at $250 and offer to sell them to this dealer
at $350.


Why waste time doing that? Assuming he is
like many other dealers, he probably paid no
more than $20 bucks for that book in the first
place.

[Memo from the upstairs office.]

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)



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