how it goes

Someone comes up to the counter with a really nice book.
Nothing rare, just an exceptionally nice copy of an uncommon title.
Maybe it's an old Modern Library Giant with a really clean dust jacket, or a nice book on something really specific like narrow-gauge railroads in Maine.

This time it was a lovely, clean old book on American folk art, priced $35.
The selling point was the dust jacket, which was whole & in remarkable shape for its age (the book was published in the early 30's).

They didn't start coating dust jackets for durability until fairly recently, and most older ones weren't even printed on heavy stock. This is why in the literary collectibles market the dust jacket carries nearly all of a book's value. A collectible literary 1st in a beautiful DJ worth 10k would be lucky to bring in a few hundred dollars without the jacket.

Even the existence of this jacket is mildly amazing. $35 is more than fair- if I'd been pricing it my pencil would have been tempted by the sweet siren song of $50.

Customers being how they are, this fellow brings this beautiful, uncommon title to the counter and whines about the price, pointing to a few insignificant bits of wear. This happens often enough that I've developed a scripted reply;
"Gee, that's unfortunate....but I'm not going to mess with the owner's price".

This always gets the same response- they grumble, then buy the book.
They know why it's not cheap as well as I do...it's just a game they play.

This particular fellow had an extra layer of chuzpah.
He browsed a while more, found another interesting, fairly pricey book, and as I rang him up said "You know, that's the first copy of that book I've ever seen in hardcover. I didn't think a hardcover edition even existed."

Maybe I'm odd, but when I come across a beautiful, reasonably priced copy of a book I admire in a format I didn't know existed, I don't wheedle over a few dollars...I'm excited I found it and cough up the green.