Quote Originally Posted by stev View Post
This is kinda how i look at it now too, even though i am not in need, i still keep an eye on auction sites ect for random little bargains that come up, if i spend $10 or $20 on a stone that i later find is not right for me, then atleast i didnt spend the $225 to find out and i can live with 10 or 20 here and there.
You can get your $10 or $20 back, too.

If one buys a $300 8x3 stone and then has it and doesn't think it's that good, at the very best you'll get back some percentage of your money, but you have to deal with the idea that you're going to give a marginal stone to someone else and they could complain. That makes it all a losing proposition for me, because when a stone isn't very good, I knock a lot of money off. If I got it cheap, then I say just what it is and in one instance I got what I paid back. For a marginal but pretty stone. A dealer bought it from me and flipped it to one of the unwashed buyers out there for three times what I sold it for

Of course, the description of mine that said it was a marginal stone that took a great deal of skill to get a good edge with...that didn't go with it on the dealer's sale.