Somebody was working their tinker skill:) This is actually a good way for a new mage to make some quick safe money.
If there is an enterprising new person out there, the tinker shops by them for 10GP I believe. If you get them at 5 GP, you can double your money at the cost of some recall regs in a day or two by recalling to the tinker shops. If you have 50 magery, you'll get some nice skill gains while you are making money.
If you don't have a runebook, I'll take you to a rune library that has the tinker shops marked, donate a runebook, and donate the mark scrolls to get you started on the venture.