Well, September's here and it's time to think about work, jobs, careers, money, etc. One of the pub names listed in the Jacqueline Simpson book (see Yarn-bombing Buxton post) is The Luck Penny. She explains that this is named after luck money, an old way of carrying out transactions and trade. A price is agreed; the purchaser pays; the vendor then hands back some money, the luck money. In my own lifetime, my dad has observed business carried out like this in the mart. What an elegant, a civilised, a humane way of doing business. Like all things folk, matters are ambiguous, floating, never obvious (how crass that would be). How crass to discuss a price with someone, to make a deal so final and unsophisticated, so one-size-fits-all, so banal. How delicate to negotiate and agree a price, but then hand back some of it anyway. To take away the hard edges of commerce. To make things personal. Such a person could never sell their soul, it would remain forever elusive.
When hawking my art at fairs and markets, I hate haggling over my prices. I have always admired the Berber traders, who in a land of haggled deals, simply state; this is my price, you can either pay it or go and buy someone else's inferior goods. How noble, I thought, sticking to their price, I thought; and I hated the people who wanted to pay less than the price I asked for my art.
But maybe I should try giving luck money? Maybe after a deal that has hardened my heart into hatred, I should soften it with luck from the freely returned coin? Maybe the luck will be mine, when my heart is light and free. Maybe hating those hagglers makes my heart hard and proud? Maybe I should give; and receive luck for it? What think you?
I really like it when there's a price for this, and a price for that, and you put it together and the seller rounds it down because they liked you and the conversation you had. Doesn't happen when things are blister-packed and bar-coded through a till, but in more old-fashioned situations. Similar feeling.
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