This forum is
very welcoming to new users. Look around a bit and you will see that that's true.
It just sounded like you were coming in here accusing lforigno of crooked business practices:
He can offer whatever he wants on eBay. And whatever he wants here. He only recently lowered the price here.
As far as why you would want to keep the offer private: If he would accept your offer of $35 publicly then he would have to honer that for everybody, so that's not smart business.
Lforigno saw fit to charge $60 for this in the beginning to cover the materials and his time. Your offer is almost half of that. $40 really is a good price and if you can scrape together the extra $5 then you should go for it as the cape is well worth it. If $40 really is a financial burden send him a friendly PM that is not acusatory in any way.
That's what I meant by: "Sheesh! $40 is a steal! Just go for that!"
Was that really that rude?
Anyway, sorry for any offense, I'll watch myself more carefully in the future. And welcome to the boards.