Worst Dealer You Ever Dealt With

I know young people and people of color that "wear the cap". It is a red cap not a Klan robe.

Truth. The imbuement of a neutral inanimate object with charged political content seems to be rather a feckless exercise. I assume the offending caps in question do not carry a specific textual message.

Profiling. Ut oh.
Reminds me of the comic who was talking about how the police had stopped him one night and it was strictly a case of profiling. The cops were indeed profiling... that night they were stopping everyone who was driving on the sidewalk.
Don

I've never dealt with a really bad dealer that I can recall. I tend to be able to work with anyone and ignore personality quirks and views outside of philately. The only thing I don't like at shows are the very few dealers who do not price their items. These dealers tend to be very disorganized - no system can be ascertained. You're expected to find something in the mess and then get a priced pulled from the air and then haggle. Luckily it's rare to come across these folks, but when I do I steer clear of them.

I don't buy from dealers at shows or bourses but I butt heads with them at major public auctions . I received my share of negative comments. There are two or three dealers who over the years I made friends with over the years . For these dealers I will disclose the lots I plan to bid on and if those lots are on their list ,then I cross those out ,because they are trying to run a business and there are other stuff for me to bid on .One thing I will not discuss is price or bidding levels.

Enough with the hat bit on here .......keep politics off the board ....

Alas, there are a few show dealers who cannot seem to keep politics out of their conversations. That's just how it is. Some are very knowledgeable and have great material. But pretending deafness is sometimes helpful, depending on how well you know the dealer.

It would seem to be unfair to the auction consigners to hold back competing against another bidder for their lots and in effect potentially lowering the realization. A reality of the process no doubt but it just does not seem right. As a frequent consigner it is a bit disturbing.

Personally, I've run across a couple of dealers who were less than pleasant to deal with. One or two stand out, but don't bear repeating.

What gets me is when dealers are less than friendly, too lecturey (is that a word?), or dismissive of my children at shows. It happens almost every show we go to. Of course, on the flip side, at almost every show we go to there are welcoming and encouraging dealers who want to help them grow their collections and encourage them to continue with the hobby.

How about briefly changing the topic to talk about some good dealers? Went to the periodic bourse today at the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library. Bought from three of the dealers present and two went the extra mile trying to find stamps on my short want list. Bought from both.

The 3rd dealer is strictly a postal history dealer. He saw me approaching his table and immediately pulled out his current stock of Portugal & colonies covers. Obviously, I've bought from him before. I found several good items today that I bought, including a postcard mailed in 1952 from Timor to Macau. And had some pleasant conversation as always.

As for red baseball caps, my only one says Tongariro National Park. It could be a "political cap" if one supports weird wizards and Orcs. That's the park on the North Island of New Zealand that was the setting for "Mordor" in the Lord of the Rings movies. Cheers!

Orcs

I own one red cap,for the Liverpool Football club. Mistakenly I thought it'd be fun to wear it on a trip we took to London last October. Turns out everybody in London hates the Liverpool FC.

I grew up in rural Southeastern Kentucky and there were no such things as stamp dealers. When I was 15, during the summer of 1980, I took a Greyhound bus to Chicago to spend a week with my uncle. One afternoon while exploring his neighborhood, I came across a small stamp shop about a mile from my uncle's apartment. As I had never been in a stamp shop before, I was very excited and went in.

I walked in the door and the proprietor, a man in his 50s, was behind the counter sitting at a desk looking over some paperwork. I remember that there was a radio on broadcasting a Cubs game. The shop was small and cramped but I envisioned finding some stamps that I had been looking for for quite some time. I said hello to the man behind the counter and he looked up from his paperwork but did not say anything.

I looked around the shop for a few minutes and stepped up to the counter and asked if he had a certain issue (can't remember what) and he said that he did. He got up, stepped over to a file cabinet and began rummaging around in one of the drawers. I expected him to come out with the issue I had requested but, instead, he came out with the largest cigar I had ever seen. He walked back to his desk, sat down, lit his cigar and went back to his paperwork without saying a word to me. I got the message and left.

I'm sure he was put off by my age but my grandmother had given me $75 for my trip and I was willing to spend up to $50 of it if I found the right items. God only knows how he managed to stay in business.

No red caps, but I do have a "Visit Mordor" t-shirt!

Incidentally (but perhaps not so coincidentally), in my story of the ebay scam artist earlier in this thread, the items I had bought were New Zealand Lord of the Rings stamps.