Antique Dealer

[Rodgera]

A crafty old antique dealer is travelling through a rural area when
he spots a priceless Chippendale cabinet in a junk shop. He knows he
will make tens of thousands of dollars reselling it if he can
persuade the shop owner that it's worthless.

He offers the man twenty dollars, explaining that the only reason
he's interested is that he needs some firewood and the wood should
burn well. So the price is agreed and the dealer explains that he'll
return the next day with his van to pick up the cabinet.

The following morning, the dealer drives up and sees a pile of old
wood sitting outside the shop.

"What's that?" he says.

"It's the cabinet," says the shop owner. "I felt so guilty charging
twenty dollars for firewood that I've done you a favor and chopped it
up for you."

[KBs PensNmore]

Serves himself right for trying to cheat the store owner.

[RedShirtGuy]

Ahhh karma...gotta love it

[Allan at Wallan]

Betcha the buyer was "cut up" over that deal.

Allan

[Toymaker Len]

Its a short story by Roald Dahl called "The Parsons Pleasure" 1959 in a collection called 'Kiss Kiss'.

[Sawdust Maker]

Heard a story a few years ago about a chap who found the 6th antique chair to match his set.
haggled to the death with the antique dealer who finally got the and took an axe to the chair

[Toymaker Len]

Now I will tell you a true story...
Years ago I noticed the old baptist church at charlestown was being renovated so I went in and met the builder and asked to buy the beautiful cedar windows. After lots of haggling I got him down to $10 per window and was quickly back with my trailer and loaded up twelve windows out of the ground floor. A bit more haggling and he agreed to sell me all the windows out of the first floor too when they came out. "When you see them taken out just come down and get them" he said. Well I went past everyday for ten days waiting for the windows to be taken out. Finally they were gone and I rushed home, hooked up the trailer and went to get the windows. When I got down there and found the builder he said "Don't even look mate. We couldn't be bothered taking them out so we just smashed them" And then I learned that getting the lowest price can be counter-productive. If I had agreed to $20 per window he would have found time to remove the architrave and snip the two nails on each side that were holding the windows in and get his guys to carry the windows down to the yard. I think it was about fourteen beautiful three panel 2m x 1.5m windows all smashed and lying in the back of his truck ready to go to the tip.