Quoted from velcroman:When I went to pick up the machine he let me know that 10-12 guys had called after me and none had mentioned the market value until he told them it had sold, and then they all made offer after offer which he declined.
Bingo. That's the missing piece of the puzzle, and it's why I was hoping the seller would stop by and give his version of events.
There's almost certainly another guilty party involved here, the one who wound up with the machine. I doubt very much if the seller decided on his own to screw over the original poster. No, someone called, heard the machine was already spoken for, and, rather than respect the deal, jumped in, started talking trash, waving money around, doing whatever they could to get in the middle of it, and it worked.
I mean, it takes 2 to tango, and I'm not defending the seller, but when the bad karma from this deal is allocated, the person who didn't gracefully accept the fact that he lost a deal and should move on is as guilty as anyone.