EDIT: C'mon people!!!!! Where are all the good stories? I know every serious collector must have made at least one trade/sale/purchase in their life that they felt even the slightest bit bad about! No one's gonna hate you, so tell the fricken story! I know at least one of you out there probably beats up young children and steals their Game Boys right out of their hands-- so let's hear about it!
ORIGINAL POST:
Yes, I almost made a little kid cry today... here's what happened. I recently saw a Virtual Boy in my local paper for $25. Of course, I was interested and called the guy up. (I already own a VB, but it's the type of fragile system that's really nice to get a cheap backup for). He didn't put up a fight at all when I suggested $15 for it, so I was definitely sold on it.
While I was there to pick it up I asked if he had any other gaming stuff. He said he had "Sega games that came on CDs". Of course, he didn't remember which Sega system that was. So after digging for 10 minutes in a box of old computer games, he pulled out Sonic CD and a few other games. When he pulled them out his kids started crying out "No daddy, you can't sell those! We love that Sonic game!" These were like 3 little kids probably aged like 5 to 12. Anyways, he told me he'd dig through some more boxes to find the Sega CD system; and I told him to call me once he did and I'd be willing to offer him another $15 for it. As I left I heard the kids begging him not to sell it and him explaining to them that he needed money right now (to pile onto the feeling guilty, since I had dropped the initial price $10, even though $25 was fair enough). Now I'd consider these pretty good deals, considering that's what they would cost just for shipping alone on eBay. And hey, I'm not gonna turn them down over a little guilt.
But I'm sure some of you out there must have scored some much bigger deals from unsuspecting people. Anyone ever found an amazing deal but felt a little bad about it afterwards? Maybe some little old lady selling off her son's old Sega Saturn system and RPG collection for $50 (even worse if you're the one who told her it was only worth that much).
Or like me, bought a system from a parent while the kids were about to break down crying because you were taking their games away? This buying experience today got me thinking about this and I'm sure there's some much better stories out there than mine. So, yes, everyone on the boards will thing you're a complete scumbag afterwards, but we'll be completely jealous too.