Yeah, I've rarely sent $ to hold an item. The last was $50 to show good faith on a $500 item.
I always tell myself that I stand a good chance of losing it, if so can I afford the loss?
The biggest risk I ever took was on a beautiful aircooled diesel engine, a Lister 7.5 VA.
At the time it was a 60 years old, the vendor was a Newfoundlander, lived in a small fishing village and those people did business over the telephone all the time.
He was used to shipping stuff all over the Eastern seaboard on the strength of a phone call and a "cheque's in the mail".
I think the total paid with the shipping all in was $1800. 800 pound engine.It arrived 2 weeks later and fired up on the first crank....