A Story of a Wheeler Dealer of a Flipper!
First my friends, a little about how this deal went down....
I stumbled upon this pair of KEF’s doing what I routinely do, crawling through Craig’s looking for anything KEF. They were advertised in Tucson, AZ for $600, with the bass surrounds needing help. A common issue! And unfortunately, the KUBE had been sold off. But what I saw seemed to indicate that the speakers were in awesome shape otherwise. I sent an email only to be told that they had been sold and so I quickly put them out of my mind.
"There will be others!", I said to myself.
Then, as is so often the case, they turned back up on the Tucson CL, but this time for $1300. I shrugged and shook my head;
“Damn Flippers!”, I said. This is when I re-contacted the original owner and he said yeah, the guy who bought them was a real “wheeler dealer” kind of guy who probably would end up having to sit on them. So I waited and watched!
Well after a while they went down to $1200, but I was in no rush. Until finally I saw them for $600 and then I jumped in. Well now it got real interesting. You see, the guy pulls the
old bait and switch and tells me he had a pair for $600 but the bass units were in need of a re-foam and he already sold them. But he had another pair in mint shape for $1200. As you can imagine, I said,
“Yeah right, sorry but no deal. Hope you find another buyer.”
But now I had his attention. A few days went by and the guy calls me back and says;
“Listen, if you want them I’ll sell them, for $1000.” Well I told him I was interested, but I’d have to think about it and work out the logistics. This is when we really got down to brass tacks.
He didn’t really want to deal through email, so I shunned his calls. I’d send him emails asking him a few questions at a time;
Did he have detailed pictures? Any major damage or issues I should know about? What was the finish like? You know, stuff to keep him moving forward but dragging my feet a bit.
He told me there was no KUBE (yeah, I already knew that from the previous seller) so I acquiesced a little bit on that, making sure to note that even though it wasn’t a big deal to me, it impacted the overall value. I wanted to make sure the Top Hats were solid and the screens were on the heads and the heads weren’t blown. Back and forth we went and he came back with all the right answers. Excellent condition, all of the working parts, except no KUBE. OK, time to play ball.
I hit him with the real deal;
“So how are the Bass Driver surrounds?”, I asked.
“Oh their fine”, he said,
“Must have been repaired a while back.” Then I told him straight up;
“Look, I’m going to drive quite a ways to come look at these. I already own a pair and I’ve rebuilt them. There are 6 screws and the bottom plate comes off and I will be looking at the condition of the surrounds. If the Surrounds are gone, what will be the deal then, because I want you and me to have an understanding how this will go down!”
Oh how the tune changed. I get an email back saying to the effect that he wanted to check them to see if there would be any issues and sure enough the surrounds need to be redone.
"So would $800 work for the pair?", he asked. I swallowed hard and said;
"Sure, you got a deal!!!!"
Yeah, I spent $100 in gas and 5 hours of my life to pick them up on my way back from a bike trip in Sedona. I paid a couple hundred more than this guy had in them but I guess in the end once the big KEF’s have touched your Soul, nothing else seems to matter! What is it they say? Yeah... love is blind!