A question about dealers

Greetings,
Most of my thinking time seems to occur while I am driving to or from shows. On my way back to sunny Missouri after a drizzly military vehicle rally in Spooner, Wisconsin, I was thinking about buying things at shows.

I ponder a lot of different things on such drives, but a single phenomenon that seems to be equally rampant at both military vehicle shows and military relic shows monopolized my thoughts: Dealers who don’t price their items. “What can possibly be their motive?” I asked myself. Hours past as I ran various scenarios to justify this behavior.

At long last, I couldn’t come up with anything other than, “A dealer who doesn’t price their items at a show hope to take advantage of a buyer.” Surely, the dealer knows what he paid for the item. Surely, he knows what sort of profit he wants to make. And yet, many dealers don’t mark the prices. Why?

Honestly, I can’t think of any reason other than they hope to put the screws to customers after they evaluate the potential victims ability to shell out cash. There might be less sinister motives, but I couldn’t come up with them.

So, I am asking the readers, “Why do dealers make the effort to set up their wares at shows but neglect to put price tags on them?” Share your thoughts with us in the “COMMENTS” section.

Keep treating others the way you hope to be treated,
John Adams-Graf
Editor, Military Trader and Military Vehicles Magazine