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[[underlined]] Telephone conversation Mr. Georges [[pencil underlined]] proposes [[/pencil underlined]] to have with Baron Cassel [[/underlined]]

May 5, 1944

I am calling personally and for that reason would not like you to make use of what I am going to tell you.

Let me first explain the psychological point of view. Telling a customer that an item belongs to an outsider is a system that could hardly be called more than a sales talk because it is as old as the trade.

It has a double advantage: It puts a customer in a better position to bargain down because he is not bargaining with the person with whom he speaks, but is bargaining with a third party and therefore feels less embarrassed to make his offers. As a matter of fact, you will remember that you yourself very often came to the firm and hardly ever bought a thing, even when you saw items which were extremely tempting to you because you knew they belonged to the firm and you had the feeling that the firm would not give in as much as you wanted and that it was useless to try.

This system, on the other hand, puts the firm in a better position to be bargained down because without losing face it can accept almost any offer in the name of the outsider.

^[[In order to make this system logical, the customer expects the firm to make a commission.]]

Now comes a third psychological point which is sentimental and I hope you won't find it stupid. I wanted to try to help you to buy a tapestry that I saw you evidently liked from the beginning. I spared no effort in order to obtain this result. It meant something to me to thank you in this way for your extreme kindness to me some years ago. If you remember, I told you that $8000. was the last price that the firm would accept and this was [[strikethrough]] to [[/strikethrough]] my true belief, but when you said you did not want to pay more than $6300., I had to apply all the pressure I could to get the firm to accept the idea of selling the tapestry under its cost price. I pointed out repeatedly to the firm which naturally was opposed to suffering a loss, how much it would mean to them if by making this gesture and rendering this purchase by you possible, it would acquire your good will, and if in pleasing you at the cost of a sacrifice, I could help you to become a regular client of the firm.

These are all the psychological points of view I wanted to point out and when you go back to the thing, there is really nothing that I think is worthwhile complaining about. Quite right I told you that the tapestry wasn't ours when it was ours. If I had told you that it was ours, the tapestry would not be in your home today because maybe you would have been hampered psychologically from making the offer of $6300. [[strikethrough]] because [[/strikethrough]] that you did and the firm would not have been in a position to accept $6300. because as a matter of principle the firm does not reduce its prices to such an extent. [[strikethrough]] It might not be 100% correct, but it was at least 100% efficient. [[/strikethrough]]

To summarize the whole story, I tried to please you the best I could and I only succeeded to the contrary.

[[strikethrough]] I was anxious in order to close the deal to tell you that the firm owned the tapestry.[[/strikethrough]]

^[[Comme je ^[ne] pouvais pu mettre le firme dans la position de ne compter une commisison, ce qui n'était pas possible [[underlined]] avant de clore les négociations [[/underlined]] je vous ai dit au telephn et vous m'avez [[?]] tout le temps et je vous ai dit que la [[?]] appartient à la firme