Post #381066 by tikipedia on Sun, May 18, 2008 4:20 PM

I had a situation arise at the swap meet which has me thinking whether the event was a case of rudeness, or if it was fair game.

I was going through a bin of matchbooks and I found a bunch of very good ones. I gathered up most of them and was running my hands through the bin to see if I missed any. Suddenly, out from my left blind spot, a hand shot into the bin and grabbed a matchbook. Although I had only a quick glance at the matchbook, it was clearly Tiki.

When I turned, I saw the person who got the matchbook is a well known member of Tiki Central. The person then immediately walked over to the seller and asked how much it was, etc. I was a bit stunned at what had just happened because it happened so fast. But after thinking it over a bit, I can only surmise the person knew I too was looking for Tiki since the buyer didn't bother to go through the bin any further, and I had the matchbooks I had already found in my hand. I doubt the TC member recognized me, but who knows.

So I am wondering if this was a case of a land grab by a TC member, or if it is fair game. The bin was about the size of a rectangular cake pan, so it wasn't like it was a huge box. I would completely expect that if I stepped away from the bin, anything in there would be for the taking. But I was still 'working' it to see what else I could find.

I wasn't all that mad about what had happened, since I had a pretty good haul anyway. And had I seen the matchbook (which I was about to do), I would have taken it and the TC member would clearly be out of luck. But I suppose it still bugs me a bit, and I'm wondering if I should PM the person about it.