I travel a lot for my job and this last week I was in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area and when I have a few extra minutes, I try to find a coin shop to waste away an hour or two. I visited two shops in Ann Arbor and this is what I came away with. Shop 1: In downtown Ann Arbor I found an Antique shop that also sold coins. It was mostly antiques with a small display case of coins. I rummaged through his red box of IHC 2x2s and found these three coins which I bought for $136. He obviously did not know much about varieties. He did not even have a greysheet, which told me that he did not really care about what things were worth, just as long as he made a buck or two over what he bought them for. The 1886 is UNC and will be sent in for grading. The 1897 is a VG/F S1, "1 in neck", and the 1869 is the S-3 overdate. It has some obv scratches on it, but it completes my set, so I am happy. I think I did pretty well. Shop 2: Bought an VF/EF 1886 type 2 and three used Dansco albums for $20. Sorry, no pics of the type 2 yet, but it has 2.5 diamonds visible. There is some very minor corrosion going on on the reverse, but it is still a tough coin for what I paid.
You did well! That's what cherrypicking is all about. I wouldn't be so hard on the storeowner. He is not a coin dealer - he is an antique dealer who also sells a few coins. He cannot be expected to be an expert on IHC varieties. And I would not expect a storeowner like him to subscribe to the Grey Sheet.