Sellers: When do you drop your price?

Of course you pay a retailer more.....it's retail! Even if discounted. He stands behind the product and will help resolve any issues at a minimum. Hopefully he adds value conveying his expertise on the options available and tips on using the component. He has to work with the manufacturer and pay to inventory the goods. And the stores I buy from are owned by individuals (not Best Buy, etc.), so they are dudes too. I didn't mention Marx or Friedman.

I hate to say it @gano, but if you sell something to a "dude", even the Big Lebowski, it is still a transaction. Also you didn't answer my question about what you would charge if you inherited a nice component that you weren't going to use. Would you give it away since you paid nothing? Or if you had to pay inheritance tax on it, would you charge that? Of course not. So whatever price you agreed to below market is charity. If it is a friend, of course you cut them slack (or maybe give it to him for free), but I am talking about arms lengths transactions, regardless of "dude" ness.

@sokogear
if let's say I found something on the street, that I would be sure no one is looking for, I would sell it for fair used price and I would try to use the money in ways that would benefit others, take a friend out to lunch, leave a big tip, save the dolphins, whatever. 
If it's an inheritance, I can't find any hook to your logic that "I got it for free". The person I inherited it from paid for it or someone he inherited it from paid for it, why would I give it away? Unless it's an uncle I never knew about, I work very hard for my inheritance, so I deserve to benefit for it. I.e. I support my mother financially and in every aspect and my contribution to her well being way exceeded what I will ever inherit. If my neighbor gives me his old speaker, and I don't need it anymore, I will ask him if he wants it back, if he doesn't, I will sell it on craigslist and tell him about it and split it fairly with him. I don't have a rule for everything, it's how I feel it would be fair and let me sleep well.  

@ hilde45 good link thank you! Fascinating points. 

@gano - it’s nice that you support your mother and are charitable. The inheritance could come from your father’s side. Someone maybe you didn’t know existed. That has nothing to do with the subject at hand. The question is whether @hilde45 could make profit off of a sale on Audiogon.

You contradict yourself saying you would do what is fair and let’s you sleep at night. Sounds like you might make money off of an inherited piece selling it for what you consider is fair, which I guess would be based on what they typically sell for.

Hilde - you did good and it sounds like you had a fair, market based, mutually beneficial transaction with everybody being happy. Congratulations- you should have absolutely no second thoughts about making $75.

@sokogear
you are asking hypotheticals but the original sale I disagreed with has nothing to do with those hypotheticals. I don’t see any place I contradicted myself. I would do in any situation what I think is fair and there are endless types of situations. I have a moral compass that tells me what’s fair, so calling any outcome a contradiction is an oxymoron.
If I inherit a piece of let’s say [furniture], I would look up the going price and put it on craigslist. The fact that my relative bought it, stole it, built it - irrelevant if I don’t know the source. I will do what I feel is fair based on my knowledge of the situation. If that same piece of furniture was sold to me by neighbor for x, that will be a different set of parameters determining fair price. You can argue that fair price in your view is formula x, and that’s your approach and that’s fine. For me the balance of the Universe depends on my formula, and there is nothing else to it.