Selling on Ebay – no longer worth my time or effort.

[chaz]

I buy from ebay because I can find what I want at the right price also its the biggest marketplace and sets the prices for the rest nowadays, but, I cant sell. I have engineering tools, measuring kit, motorcycle parts, stamp collections (plus the wife would suggest a lot more) .I cant sell as I don't have a paypal account, due to a previous problem, I'm not sure what they wont let me have an account again and never will be able apparently. All I can think of is they raised an issue regarding tracing my sales.  I didn't give tracking details for one sale........It was advertised as collection only, and that's what the buyer did.

 

Mr Raker, what I have seen is , people win lots then remove what they want and re submit to the next auction.

you could win then try advertising the rest, maybe on the forum. 

[Moonraker]

4 minutes ago, chaz said:

Mr Raker, what I have seen is , people win lots then remove what they want and re submit to the next auction.

you could win then try advertising the rest, maybe on the forum. 

Possibly. I'll need to sum up the individual lots to see how many cards I really want. Slightly irkingly, the vendor lived just eight miles from me and knew my interest - I sold him a couple of cards via eBay and he had my books - and I would have liked to have seen his collection.

 

Given that some of the cards are quite common, the unit reserve price per card does seem a bit high - and then there's 20% purchasers' fee and paying for postage etc - though the auctioneer has said that I can collect any I win them from its London office. (Not a problem: I'm up there two or three times a month.)

 

Yes, eBay is very useful for buying things that would otherwise entail trudging around shops and getting blank looks.

 

I've just come across an eBay quirk when I tried to list some North Korean stamps and got a red-print message advising that this can't be allowed because it's an American company (which is about as close to "modern politics" as I dare venture lest I get a red-print message from our own Mods.)

 

Moonraker

[chaz]

interestingly, I won a lot last year with one family named medal pair and 6 others. I only wanted the pair.

on receiving them, I checked them and found a couple of casualties, presumably seller knew they were there but no one else picked them up. result was,  one of the casualties have paid for my pair and the rest are profit, if ever I manage to get round to selling any of them!!!

I have mentioned on the BMF medal forum, another forum member notified me of an auction lot with a family named interest. the result was I was out bid, the medals were then offered to me by the original notifier at a mark up on price. interestingly , he deleted his postings to me, but I had copies in my inbox..

[depaor01]

1 hour ago, Moonraker said:

I tried to list some North Korean stamps and got a red-print message advising that this can't be allowed because it's an American company

I would query that with them. It's not like you're contravening an embargo.

It's like being accused of funding Nazi Germany by selling Reichsmarks.

Makes no sense to me.

Dave

[Moonraker]

Nor to me. I can't be bothered to again look up eBay's dictum/diktat, but

 

here's a relevant article

 

but Googling "eBay North Korea" leads to lots of items for sale, including "hand-waving flags", propaganda booklets - and stamps and coins.

 

Curious - so after all I did look up the diktat:

 

"Listings for stamps, coins or paper money from North Korea are not permitted. eBay’s policy prohibits the sale of most items that originate from North Korea due to sanctions enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). If you list such an item in violation of this policy, we will remove the item and may prohibit you from further use of our services."

 

(eBay is an American company.)

 

I suspect that the mods will agree with me that we should take this particular theme no further, as we're off-topic time-wise and are touching on modern politics. There are many more comments in the links appended  to the article that show illogicalities in eBay's policy.

 

Moonraker

Edited 24 January , 2018 by Moonraker

[Coldstreamer]

I'm intrigued as to how this 12 year old thread has been dug up! 

Edited 24 January , 2018 by Coldstreamer

[depaor01]

54 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

Nor to me. I can't be bothered to again look up eBay's dictum/diktat, but

 

here's a relevant article

 

but Googling "eBay North Korea" leads to lots of items for sale, including "hand-waving flags", propaganda booklets - and stamps and coins.

 

Curious - so after all I did look up the diktat:

 

"Listings for stamps, coins or paper money from North Korea are not permitted. eBay’s policy prohibits the sale of most items that originate from North Korea due to sanctions enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). If you list such an item in violation of this policy, we will remove the item and may prohibit you from further use of our services."

 

(eBay is an American company.)

 

I suspect that the mods will agree with me that we should take this particular theme no further, as we're off-topic time-wise and are touching on modern politics. There are many more comments in the links appended  to the article that show illogicalities in eBay's policy.

 

Moonraker

 

Suffice to say that it is as ridiculous as their paranoia about the Swastika.

 

[Moonraker]

10 minutes ago, Coldstreamer said:

I'm intrigued as to how this 12 year old thread has been dug up! 

 As I warned in another thread, I've been kept in by today's lousy weather, which has made me more inclined to trivial posts than usual. I felt the urge to be whimsical about the temptations of buying  WWI-related material at auction and disposing of surplus items on eBay. Googling "Invisionzone eBay" led to a number of related threads, of which this seemed the most appropriate to express my whimsy.

 

Steven Broomfield has already being kind enough to nominate me for the annual "Best opening line to a post on the Forum" award this year - and so early on!   Also. I'm wondering when to lay claim to having started the longest thread, currently 758 posts. Sadly (or happily, depending on your perspective), details are to be found only in Skindles, the off-topic section of the Forum.

 

Perhaps I may also be able to claim a record of 12 years for a thread to be rejuvenated?

 

Moonraker

[Coldstreamer]

Who needs the Oscars 

[Moonraker]

On 24/01/2018 at 14:42, Moonraker said:

There's a very large collection of collectables to be sold at a conventional auction next month, split into fifty or so lots, with several that interest me. In all except one case (and it's a very desirable one), the lots contain 40 to 60 postcards, many of which I think I have and perhaps two or three that I would like...

 

Moonraker

 

On 24/01/2018 at 15:04, chaz said:

... Mr Raker, what I have seen is , people win lots then remove what they want and re submit to the next auction.

you could win then try advertising the rest, maybe on the forum. 

 

On 24/01/2018 at 15:20, Moonraker said:

Possibly. I'll need to sum up the individual lots to see how many cards I really want. Slightly irkingly, the vendor lived just eight miles from me and knew my interest - I sold him a couple of cards via eBay and he had my books - and I would have liked to have seen his collection.

 

Given that some of the cards are quite common, the unit reserve price per card does seem a bit high - and then there's 20% purchasers' fee and paying for postage etc ...

Moonraker

I've just received the very lavish auction catalogue and nearly all of the sample illustrations of postcards show items I already have, though there's one card that recently reach £70+ on eBay that I wouldn't mind. There's also one not very exciting example of something I've been after for some time, but the reserve is £120 ...

 

Still, I can conveniently examine nearly all the lots in London later this month and then decide. One deterrent is that some of the lots include copies of my own books - and I've already got far too many enough of these - and of other stock reference books I already have.

 

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

I've just collected the two lots that I won in the auction mentioned in my last post, and they were the ones I wanted the most - and I won one  for below the estimate. The items related to Perham Down, Park House, West Down and Sling camps and troops de-training at Ludgershall and Amesbury Stations. I was particularly pleased to win two cards of George V arriving at Ludgershall to inspect troops (including a copy of the £70+ one noted above), a 1900 postmark for West Down Camp and a 1915 letter from a contractor's workman at Fovant Camp.

 

As expected, there were a few more cards I was happy enough to obtain, and others that I might as well keep (though I already have more than enough showing just tents). And there were several that can replace existing cards because they bear interesting messages. Which leaves 20 or 30 cards (out of 100 or so), a few of which might be worth offering individually on eBay but they're mainly too common to bother doing so.

 

One  card shows soldiers and horse tackle at West Down Camp and is addressed to "The Doctors Assitant [sic]. c/o Mrs Lee, Next to the Diamond King, Regent Street, Teignmouth", with, presumably, a postman having annotated "Try 30x". The message is signed by "The Doctor", perhaps a pet name?

 

A very minor disappointment was that a Silk RAMC card I'd noticed turned out to have no Wiltshire connection - and there are already quite a few such, albeit of different design, on eBay.

 

The item with a £120 estimate went for £240.

 

"RARE FIRST DAY USAGE OF CROWNED 'MAPLE LEAF' FPO CDS ON "WAR SERVICE" COVER; Stampless 14 Oct. 1914 env. (small fault at top) to Barton on Humber endorsed "War Service" with mainly very fine blue crowned rubber "CANADIAN OVERSEAS/[maple leaf]/EXPEDITIONARY FORCE/FIELD/POST OFFICE" d.s., dated a day earlier than the Proof strikes in Cavendish's Nov. 2005 auction (lot 358) which were endorsed as used at Devonport, though later strikes were from mail ex the Wiltshire camps, where they are thought to have arrived on the day this cover was posted."

The Contingent had landed in England on the 14th and did not start to leave for Wiltshire by train until the next day. (A very small advance party had arrived in England about two weeks earlier.)

 

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

On 23/03/2018 at 13:55, Moonraker said:

... The item with a £120 estimate went for £240.

 

"RARE FIRST DAY USAGE OF CROWNED 'MAPLE LEAF' FPO CDS ON "WAR SERVICE" COVER; Stampless 14 Oct. 1914 env. (small fault at top) to Barton on Humber endorsed "War Service" with mainly very fine blue crowned rubber "CANADIAN OVERSEAS/[maple leaf]/EXPEDITIONARY FORCE/FIELD/POST OFFICE" d.s., dated a day earlier than the Proof strikes in Cavendish's Nov. 2005 auction (lot 358) which were endorsed as used at Devonport, though later strikes were from mail ex the Wiltshire camps, where they are thought to have arrived on the day this cover was posted."
 

Moonraker

Happily I've just picked up another cover with this cancellation for just £50: a bit more illegible and without the apparent first "day of use" status of the above. But I'm happy enough. From the same vendor I also obtained a very early (1898) example of a Perham Down Camp Field Post Office postmark.

 

Another eBay vendor is offering an envelope sent to Devizes Barracks in 1894 but for some reason is not accepting bids or private messages from me. I have checked possible reasons for this: suffice to say that my eBay record is immaculate. Nor has he replied to my email asking what's the problem.

 

Moonraker

[derekb]

I think like everything there are good and bad on eBay. 

 

I would be very wary of buying anything military on eBay and not only eBay; I’m now of the opinion that most things militaryyou need to see and touch. 

 

I had a recent experience with some items that didn’t work and before I knew my money had been refunded with the best of grace. 

 

Then again I recieved another item that wasn’t anything like it was described with this I just gave up as it would have been more use talking to the wall and put it down to experience. 

 

I’ve had items become “no longer available” when I’ve been the only bidder 

 

Then you have some of the militaria dealers sites - not on eBay; I am at a loss to think where they get the “information/description” of some of the items they have for sale; I sometimes worry that they actually believe the drivel accompanying some of their items. 

 

Oh well never mind

 

regards

 

Derek

 

 

[Moonraker]

21 hours ago, derekb said:

... Then you have some of the militaria dealers sites - not on eBay; I am at a loss to think where they get the “information/description” of some of the items they have for sale; I sometimes worry that they actually believe the drivel accompanying some of their items...

It happens with postcards too, though this is often down to ignorance - one can't expect a dealer or private individual to be informed about every subject in an eclectic collection of cards.

 

Someone is currently offering a postcard of Stonehenge with a "Zeppelin" flying overhead; in fact it would have been a photo of a British balloon cut out of an aviation magazine and stuck on the plate. Another vendor is listing a photo of soldiers "at Trowbridge Barracks" because it has a Trowbridge postmark; in fact the men are out in the countryside (probably Salisbury Plain) and the message suggests that that the sender had forgotten to post it for several weeks and did so when he got home. I tried to explain this to the vendor, but he hasn't changed the description.

 

Moonraker

[toofatfortakeoff]

Bit about Walter Clay on my site aka McClay Canadian contingent

[ianw]

Ebay is often frustrating but it turned up my Gt Uncle's 15 Star this year - thanks to a Forum member's heads up - and is I think the only viable way that I can sell all sorts of stuff - including the appliances from my old kitchen fetching £150 with the alternative being lugging them to the dump myself or paying the council to do it.

Ebay - you can't live without it

[Steven Broomfield]

52 minutes ago, ianw said:

 

Ebay - you can't live without it

 

I've never bought anything from, or sold anything on, eBay.

 

That means either that you're wrong or I'm some description of zombie.

 

Let's not ask Mrs Broomfield.

[ianw]

3 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

 

I've never bought anything from, or sold anything on, eBay.

 

That means either that you're wrong or I'm some description of zombie.

 

Let's not ask Mrs Broomfield.

 

No Ebay!    

 

What did TSE write     "Living and partly living"

[BIFFO]

I can honestly say I have bought and sold on ebay,I have just sold 12 trios to a man in oz,he wanted to send via western union I told himno,so he sent money pay pal,I know you have to pay their bill,but he sent me the money as a gift so he has said I will not be charged at this end,the only small problem I had I put up for sale a qrtr size samurai helmet (honest) starting price very low,I had loads of watchers one chap offered me a silly amount which I refused,I pointed out to the  "watchers"go check out the prices of other sim helmets,in the end I pulled it from the auction and as I type its by my desk

Biffo

[Guest]

2 hours ago, BIFFO said:

I can honestly say I have bought and sold on ebay,I have just sold 12 trios to a man in oz,he wanted to send via western union I told himno,so he sent money pay pal,I know you have to pay their bill,but he sent me the money as a gift so he has said I will not be charged at this end,the only small problem I had I put up for sale a qrtr size samurai helmet (honest) starting price very low,I had loads of watchers one chap offered me a silly amount which I refused,I pointed out to the  "watchers"go check out the prices of other sim helmets,in the end I pulled it from the auction and as I type its by my desk

Biffo

 

    What does Ebay do about the new "small item" import tax down in Oz?    Has your man in  Oz just got you to dodge Oz taxes by claiming them as a "gift", when they are a commercial transaction and chargeable.?

Edited 19 July , 2018 by Guest

[Lee Bradbury]

I’ve only had two ‘bad’ experiences on eBay. One was a US bidder winning a Lot when I specifically stated ‘U.K. sale only’; the other was in my early days of using eBay when someone asked me to sell him my Lot, I’d not used the ‘Buy it Now’ option. He said to remove it & then would send payment but then started saying the price was too much & he wanted to pay a lot less. Needless to say I didn’t deal with him after that.

[BIFFO]

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 18:39, voltaire60 said:

 

       Has your man in  Oz just got you to dodge Oz taxes by claiming them as a "gift", when they are a commercial transaction and chargeable.?

yep 

I posted last year saying its daft that some gwf have things for sale and put them on e bay,yet when I mentioned I had a bayonet for  sale I got a slap  ,why do we have a sales area where you cannot sell,forum funds could benefit rather than e bay the thing that grinds my gears,go look at ww1 relics you will see loads of "stuff" from Latvia and surrounding area probably being sold by a  "night hawk "no body mentions that, been going on for years, so people are buying not me,, why if your bothered go write to e bay officials ?

Edited 20 July , 2018 by BIFFO

[Moonraker]

On 24/01/2018 at 14:42, Moonraker said:

There's a very large collection of collectables to be sold at a conventional auction next month, split into fifty or so lots, with several that interest me. In all except one case (and it's a very desirable one), the lots contain 40 to 60 postcards, many of which I think I have and perhaps two or three that I would like. I'll be able to examine most of the lots beforehand, but I'm apprehensive about being left with stuff I don't want, including copies of my own books! There will be a few good cards I could offer on eBay (though similar ones at somewhat high prices have been listed for months), but also commoner ones that aren't worth listing.

 

I'm a bit jaundiced, because my attempts to sell on eBay duplicates of stamps featuring cycling aren't being very successful.

 

Moonraker

 

On 23/03/2018 at 13:55, Moonraker said:

I've just collected the two lots that I won in the auction mentioned in my last post, and they were the ones I wanted the most - and I won one  for below the estimate. The items related to Perham Down, Park House, West Down and Sling camps and troops de-training at Ludgershall and Amesbury Stations. I was particularly pleased to win two cards of George V arriving at Ludgershall to inspect troops (including a copy of the £70+ one noted above), a 1900 postmark for West Down Camp and a 1915 letter from a contractor's workman at Fovant Camp.

I've been gradually selling off the unwanted cards on eBay. One bonus was that, despite its Wiltshire postmark, one card showed a camp on the Isle of Man and so fetched more than double what it would have done had it featured the camp suggested by the postmark.

 

Then I offered four or five cards each of West Down and Perham Down in two separate lots and got no interest despite setting a starting price of £6 or so for each. Fair enough, they were common cards. Finally I put the two lots together, threw in three more cards, two of which were very unremarkable, and gave a starting price of £9.99. To my surprise the combined lot has just gone for £24 ...

[phsvm]

Yes, e-bay can be a rip off but if you do your home work it can be very rewarding.  I've just funded a complete holiday for myself and my husband - 3 weeks in Australia including all flights, accommodation and spending money - through my ebay sales.

 

I'm not a 'professional' and don't sell new items, just bits I pick up in junk shops, stuff I have filling my house and what I cleared out of my mother's house when she died.  It does take time listing and researching but done properly and being prepared to wait for things to sell is worth while in my opinion.

 

I've also purchased nearly all my silk postcard collection from e-bay which I love and now consists of hundreds of cards.  It's a collection I certainly wouldn't have been able to put together without ebay.

 

 

[Moonraker]

Two "military Wiltshire" postcards have just gone for eye-watering sums on eBay (to my slight chagrin). A 1914 card showing mechanics working on a BE 2a biplane at Netheravon fetched £85. And a card showing two soldiers in a dogcart on the road  to Amesbury with Stonehenge in the background c1912 went for £52. When I commented on this on a postcard website, a dealer replied that some of his colleagues at card fairs might well have put it in a 20p box (many Stonehenge cards being two a penny  well, five a pound.)

 

What made this card desirable was that it showed old buildings, soon to be demolished, near the monument. At first glance, I thought they were part of the bomber airfield built there in 1917 and which remained throughout the 1920s. Understandably, but frustratingly for me, most postcard photographers of that decade tried to avoid including the eyesores in their compositions.

 

Moonraker