The other week, an interesting document appeared online. It was a piece that would have fit nicely into my collection, and, while not priced crazy, it was no bargain either. I have reached a point in tempering my purchases to those that are within the range of my pocketbook. Credit card buying of antiques is always a dangerous and slippery slope. So I made an offer on the item. My price was about 20 percent off the asking price. My rationale was that the piece had been for sale quite a while, and I figured the seller should have been anxious to flip it. Well, the seller came back stating that they could not drop it more than around 7 percent. I rolled my eyes on this. I get frustrated with sellers on any online platform who will only drop pennies on the dollar. Sorry, but the point of make an offer is to sell the item at something reasonably less than the asking price. Im not talking half off, but more like the 10 to 20 percent off that one sees as the standard discount in most antiques malls. Okay, so maybe the seller had too much tied up in the piece to justify accepting my offer. That I get. Every dealer has paid too much sometimes for an item. You then are caught with either taking a loss or waiting for the market to catch up. Selling in the secondary market is always challenging. One wants to find that sweet spot where buyers will quickly purchase an item. Having grown up at the flea markets in Adamstown, I recall many museum booths, as we used to call them. These were booths or tables usually tended by little old men whose wives refused to allow them to bring stuff home anymore. As a result, they would try to sell, their pieces priced often as much as 100 times the current market. If someone were dumb enough to pay, then they would take the money and run. This phenomenon was also supported by the abundance of price guides in the old days that created an artificial inflation of pricing. Sunday after Sunday, they would sit there and enjoy their collection, safe in knowing the answer to the question from their wife of what sold on Sunday. Why, nothing sold this Sunday. Too many lookers and cheapskates. And thus both the integrity of the pricing and the sanctity of the booth were preserved. My next step with this dealer was to offer a trade. Figuring him/her as someone who was looking to flip merchandise and specialized in paper, I made a couple of offers, including Civil War soldier photographs, 19th-century tradesmen photography and manner books. Wow, the terse response I got back froze my keyboard. Clearly not interested. Online selling attracts everyone from the skilled to the dangerously amateur. I just need to remind myself of that every time I fail to bring home the deal. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.