A Story About Bargaining…And Seth Rogen

14 Oct A Story About Bargaining…And Seth Rogen

Some of you may remember the post I wrote back in May about antique factory tables, and my desire to have one.  So cool, right?

1st dibs

My vision for the Addition was to have one of these tables since the eating area will not be large.  (these tables are usually narrow)  I imagine we will eat breakfast and lunch in here, and dinner in the dining room where we eat now.  (it’s not super formal)

Thus began my quest to find one…well, to find one in my price range.  I was willing to pay a little more since this is a specialty item, but everything I was finding was way up there, and also they had been refurbished.  That may not seem like a negative, but I really wanted one in its raw, original state.  That way, I could decide if I liked it or not or wanted to change it.  I searched and searched – Ebay, Craigslist (did you know you can search ALL of the Craigslist sites and even search parts of the country using this site?)

And then, then I found one.  On 1st Dibs, no less.

My first email said this exactly:

Message  Hi, I am very interested in your table. Is this your best price? What is the approximate cost of shipping to Texas (zip code)? How wide is the table with the seats down? Thank you very much, Grace

I was told once by a dealer who actually sells on 1st Dibs that you need to take 1st Dibs prices and reduce them by 65% to get retail prices.  I’m sure not everyone would agree with that (especially the dealers), but I definitely went into it with that in mind.   After my initial email, the dealer’s answer was way too high, so I told him that was too much, and thank you for the reply.

Side note:  I do not think the dealer’s price was necessarily unfair, as these tables are rare and neat, it just wasn’t what I could pay.  My opinion is it never hurts to try.  You never know how long someone has held on to something.  

I kept watching it, hoping it wouldn’t sell, and two weeks later, emailed again.  Have you reconsidered?  Hope we can work something out.  Nope, still too high.  This went on for about three months – me emailing, him being too high, me saying thank you, good day.  (a girl’s gotta stick to the budget, or at least pretty close)

Imagine my surprise one day when the dealer emailed me, saying he had a shipping container coming to the States, and he could put the table in there (hence I would not pay shipping from Canada to the US), and he would sell it to me for $100 more than I had proposed.  Done and done.

I will tell you though, I didn’t see the email right away, and he had emailed me a couple of times after the initial offer to remind me what a great deal this was.  Clearly, this guy wanted to move this table.

You won’t have to pay shipping from Canada to your house.

This is a great table.  You can hardly buy a nice dining table for this.

And my very, very favorite.  And I copied and pasted this exactly.

Just so you know I sold one to Seth Rogen that actor

Ha!  Little does he know he is talking to the wrong person as I have no idea who that is, and don’t keep up with anything celebrity other than the headlines I see on the Yahoo homepage.

In case you don’t know either, it’s this guy.

That man has good taste in tables.

Ready to see it?

I’m sure some of you think I am nuts, but it is arriving on Wednesday (ish), and I can’t wait to see it in real life.  I love the thick butcher block top and the green chippy paint.  The only thing I’m not sure what I think of is the top of the seats.  We shall see.  But hey, Seth Rogen has one.