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Robert Gainer wrote-

>The book is of interest but the price is way out of my class. You being in
>England will have a better feel for this then I, do you think it would be
>out of line to offer less. I really hate to spread the idea that we
>(Americans) are rude and inconsiderate.
>Thanks and all the best,
>Robert Gainer

========================

Well, Robert, little that you do will affect their image of Americans.

Just as an aside, I was booking accommodation for some friends at a local
bed-and-breakfast establishment. On the phone, I could hear the owner's
face fall when I mentioned American. "They're so DEMANDING", she said. Then
I explained that although the wife was American, he was a Yorkshireman.
"Yorkshireman", she mused, "that's not much better, really". So xenophobia
is alive and well, here in England. In my view, those "demanding" Americans
do their bit to push up standards for the rest of us.

Now to answer Robert's question.

1. What I copied was the details of an Abebooks transaction. If purchased
via Abebooks, the bookseller would expect to have to pay a 10% levy to
Abebooks. But if you purchase direct from the seller, Abebooks isn't
involved, and so no levy. You might use this as an argument to get a 10%
discount, or perhaps free postage.

2. Secondhand bookshops commonly offer a discount of 10% to those in the
book trade. Not that I am, but sometimes I will find say six books that
attract me, and if so I usually ask for a reduction for quantity, the same
as a book-trader would get, of 10%, and quite often I will get it. But I am
not an accomplished haggler.

3. As a general rule, secondhand booksellers seem to expect to get their
asking price, or pretty close to it. If a book doesn't sell quickly, they
will mark its price down, after a time.

4. Every transaction is a free contract between buyer and seller, and you
are free to offer whatever you are willing to pay. The seller can always
say no. Nobody will mind.

5. I've seen the same volume on offer a couple of years ago in two US
bookshops at about twice the price asked here, which I certainly wouldn't
pay. A few weeks ago I bought a copy for less than half the price asked
here, and thought myself very lucky indeed. If that one hadn't appeared, I
think I would pay the price asked for this copy, in view of the rarity of
the book on the market.

6. The book is now 15 years after publication date. In the early years
after publication, few copies of a book turn up secondhand. They appear
later, as owners die off and their collections recycle.

7. Derek Howes knew his topic well. Quite a lot of the book is about
personal and family biography, and its a bit short on the mathematcal side
for my liking. It has a good chapter on lunars and the Nautical Almanac.
And another good chapter on Maskelyne's measurement of the deflection of
gravity, on either side of a cone-shaped mountain in Scotland, making the
first determination of the Universal Gravitational Constant (big-G) and so,
effectively, weighing the Earth for the first time. And there's a
magnificent bibliography.

8. But there's only 280 pages, which isn't a lot in terms of pages per dollar.

George.

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contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at
01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
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