Here's A Funny Little Story About Haggling

I was at a Farmer's market down here in South Eastern PA. There is a guy there that sells coins, seems to know his stuff fairly well, but not everything. I saw a Canada PL set on the shelf with young QEII on the obverse, which he had facing up. I couldn't see the date, so I asked him if he could pull it out to see what year it is. It turns out to be 1964 with the Charlottetown dollar. I asked him how much he wanted for it. He pulled out a 2009 copy of the Charleston catalog and says, $30 (US) .

Without hesitation I tell him I'll take it! My wife retorts, "You're supposed to try and talk him down, respond by saying $25 or something." I glare at her . He says, "We can do it this way..." and pulls up a website which breaks down Canadian coin melt values, and looks up the melt value of each coin in the package. He whips out his calculator and adds them all up, then says, "Well, it's probably worth more, but I'm not letting it go for less than melt value.", which was $35 (US).

I selected 4 proof US nickels he had for $2.50 each, so he knocked off $5 from the price of those and I still got it all for $40. Lesson learned: Don't bring someone you know will attempt to haggle on your behalf if you know what you're dealing with.