I never really thought about OBO working both ways but I suppose that’s technically correct.

I wasn’t referring to this situation in specific. Just the idea that I never really thought about an OBO listing being where they accept more than the asking price. I had always thought of OBO as if they don’t get the listing price, they accept the nearest offer below the listing price.

Last year I was first to respond to a really nice T2 that popped up on local CL.
I wanted to go see it right away, but the guy said he wasn’t available till early the next morning (about an hour away).
When I showed up in the morning the first thing he said was “I listed it too cheap didn’t I?”.
He told me his son listed the game for him and people were calling offering more. The father asked the son “did you tell this guy that he had first shot?”. The son replied yes and the father told him to keep his word and he had to offer it to me first.
I wound up buying the game and thanked him for being a man if his word.
Unfortunately not all sellers are like that.

It wasn’t crazy cheap, but was a descent deal at $2200. The machine is really clean with no raised insets, really nice cabinet etc. He told me two different people offered him more money and he told them he promised it to me and would let them know if I passed.
He never told me how much more they offered, but people will sell you out for cheap. He didn’t even ask me to come up on the price. The guy was really old school and I think part of the deal was a lesson to his son about keeping your word.

Yeah, there’s a lot of that on CL etc unfortunately. People will sell you out for $50 and not even give you a chance to even up your price. I’m much happier buying machine from people I know in the pinball community than randoms.
Not to mention you normally have a better idea what your getting when you buy it off another collector, especially someone you know.