"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."
~ Benjamin Franklin
Another common ploy is to say the item has been lost/damaged after a low offer has won an auction. Seen this a few times. I've given up buying anything from there except brand new stuff, and even then I am cautious.
Detman101 (December 7th, 2020)
An ebay MB 146G just went for a price i paid from a reputable dealer last fall. The seller is OK as ebay goes but tends to have pens with a lot of wear. I suppose it went at a relative bargain price considering the general rise in pen prices.
I think the people who buy pens tend to be white collar/ middle class people who have maintained income and jobs during the pandemic. Other expenses may be down as they have curtailed dining out, theater, concerts & travel. Their extra money is probably chasing fewer pens as well, since sourcing pens from the wild is probably more difficult. I myself didn’t do any wild pen stalking this past summer.
Jon Szanto (December 7th, 2020)
SlowMovingTarget (December 7th, 2020)
Ebay is not corrupt. lol They have a TOS and they enforce it. I've had excellent service from Ebay themselves a few times when a seller has been a problem. The problem is Ebay sellers. There's a lot of sellers trying to take advantage of the system and just generally seeing it a way to make money without responsibility. Ebay can't keep on top of people's attitudes, unfortunately.
As for very high prices, I just did a general check for vintage pens. And yes, way higher that I would pay from such a place. I'll go directly to vintage dealers instead.
However, that's prices for pens. Many other items on Ebay are a very, very, good deal. I've bought an awful lot of electronics, such as screws, capacitors, resistors, and semiconductors. For hobbyist quantities you can't beat the prices offered by Chinese vendors. At least in that field, the vendors are almost all polite and accommodating. I say almost, because I had one vendor refuse to deal with the fact that he'd sent me a 220v heat gun that should have been 120v as was clearly specified. Ebay just gave me my money back with no issues. I'm afraid though, that with vintage pens it's not so clear to show that there is an issue, and it's all just going to be a lot of hassle with some sellers who probably aren't real fountain pen aficionados anyway.
Detman101 (December 7th, 2020), Jon Szanto (December 7th, 2020), SlowMovingTarget (December 7th, 2020)
I've never had the first problem with eBay. At times the USPS service is slow, but that's not the seller or platform's fault.
Latest bewildering eBay happening:
Seller pushing a 100 dollar mark-1 penbbs-355 refused to work with me to purchase the pen around a month ago.
So...I spent the money plus a little more on a solid vintage Mabie Todd & Co Swan pen. GREAT investment!!!!
Today I get an "Offer" in the email from the same Penbbs-355 seller for 10 dollars less on the pen I wanted to get a month ago...
REALLY?? A month late and only $10?
Must've realized that no ones paying over $100 for his stupid Penbbs pen...lol
If it's that special to him...he can keep it.
"I can only improve my self, not the world."
eBay is so huge, how can we really generalize in any accurate way? We each have our own set(s) of experiences, some more numerous (vastly) than others.
I've made 97 purchases on ebay. Only one went badly, and finally it worked out in my favor (wrong item sent AND it arrived damaged). The other 96 went well. I will add, that I usually avoid auctions, and I rarely spend over $100 on anything. I definitely don't ever cruise it looking for vintage pen sales (not interested in that).
Just my data set and my feeling about it.
eachan (December 7th, 2020), Jon Szanto (December 7th, 2020)
This year many more sellers have offered discounts on pens I'm watching. (I watch more than I buy.)
I think it is dependent on the price expectation of the pens for sale, and I am talking about what I have seen when viewing the sales and withdrawals (for whatever reason was given) over thousands of auctions, not those that I am personally involved in. Your attempt at an appeal to authority is just offensive.
Last edited by Empty_of_Clouds; December 7th, 2020 at 08:47 PM.
Jon Szanto (December 7th, 2020)
Absolutely.
Many of the events discussed in the thread are transitory and anecdotal, not across the board common occurrences. Someone offers a high price, then comes back at you trying to get you to buy it for just a little less? That is just a seller who doesn't know his market and is trying hard to make a buck in a really stupid way. It's a human issue, not an eBay issue.
One of the easiest ways to watch this stuff is to have a couple/few items that are fairly commonly for sale, that you track over a long(er) period of time? In my case, examples would be Waterman Philieas, Moore pens of the 30s-40s, Estie Js are an easy one. You watch a bunch of them come online for a variety of prices, and then you watch what they sell for. You go for the mean average price and then, if after a longer time period you see it go up or down, you know the market - for that item, at least - has changed.
A Phileas? You'll see them offered for anywhere from 25.00 to 179.00. If you don't know what the pen is worth, you'll spend poorly.
"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."
~ Benjamin Franklin
I bought and sold on ebay in the early years. I stopped selling because people wanted a retail experience and i didn’t want to do that. I just wanted to unload some old computer parts. Unlike me, many amateurs kept selling.
I’ve had many bad experiences with ebay as a buyer: things with false descriptions and incomplete photos, as well as things that don’t arrive. I did get refunds in those cases. Some problems i realized after too much time had passed, like the hairline crack in a section. It’s possible that the seller hadn’t noticed it either or that the crack had newly developed, but i also recall the pen being inadequately packaged.
I had a lot of problems with electronic parts i bought for repairs. I’d need part ABC123 rev 2 and they’d send the incompatible rev 3 while claiming it was rev 2. I’d get a refund but it was frustrating all the same.
I almost never have such hassles with other modes of acquisition. In my opinion, ebay doesn’t merit premium prices. However, when it is the most accessible source of some items during this plague, prices will rise.
Detman101 (December 7th, 2020), Jon Szanto (December 7th, 2020)
One last bit and then I'll bow out (because, after all, I'm just another case study anyway, like all of you).
I don't know how much this factors in, but I weigh heavily the seller's rating. Only under the most rare circumstances have I purchased from anyone with less than 99.5% positive, and I usually look for 100% approval. Beyond that, people who have sales in the upper hundreds (at least) or into the thousands. A seller with 100% positive who only has 3 sales so far is meaningless - at that point, it is a crap shoot and you have to rely on gut instinct.
This may account for the very high level of satisfaction I've had in my eBay transactions, and something I always look at first when considering a purchase.
"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."
~ Benjamin Franklin
Ahriman4891 (December 29th, 2020), Detman101 (December 7th, 2020)
Detman101 (December 7th, 2020)
Very few of my problem sellers got bad reviews because they were willing to give refunds. In some cases, the negotiations went on past the feedback cutoff date. My transactions with them were nevertheless a bother.
In general , Ebay wants people to give good feedback. Higher feedback —> higher prices —> higher profits for ebay.
I have no doubt that you have bought more pens than I on eBay, not in dispute, but watched more auctions? Possible, but I would doubt it knowing my own viewing proclivities over the years. I'm an inveterate watcher of auctions.
Last edited by Empty_of_Clouds; December 7th, 2020 at 11:18 PM.
1300+ Ebay purchases (not all pens) with maybe a few duds. I mostly buy vintage pens and parts from auctions, or sometimes I am quick enough to scoop up a tasty BIN. If someone really wants to avoid shipping the item and does not wish to suffer the consequences, they can just "ship" with no tracking number. You can't prove that the item never shipped, and you eventually get a refund. So it goes. I did have one guy block payment. First explanation was that he noticed some condition issues that he didn't mention, and wanted to cancel transaction out of fairness to me. I told him that I did not care, and that I wanted it (it was a score). When push came to shove he admitted that he sold it to someone who had put in an offer for a higher amount than the #&*@# hammer price. He took a hit to his feedback score to make some extra dollars. Just business.
Mostly, if folks do anything shady, it is that they sort of forget to show or mention damage. If irritating enough, I will send it back. I have never had Ebay fail to back me, but I don't return much. Maybe one in a hundred.
I used to love hunting in the wild, and I will always miss handling the pen and yacking with the locals before the purchase. I must say, though, that Ebay has given me access to pens that I would likely never have crossed paths with otherwise
As to recent price volatility, I think that Covid is certainly part of the equation. Lots of people with restricted activities but intact finances can spend a lot of hours at home staying safe and searching Ebay. Overlay this on the general trend of diminishing supplies of vintage pens new to the market, as the hobby matures.
Bob
It's hard to quantify the last part, Bob. Just going by gut feeling it doesn't look to me that there is a diminished supply of pens out there, but it's almost impossible to really tell. I notice certain sellers seem to have more or less the same stock levels of certain pens, like the P51 for example. It's probably not possible to get statistical figures from eBay either. Perhaps the upward creep of prices is just part of the normal pattern, but more people are noticing it because they have time to notice it. I dunno.
Last edited by Empty_of_Clouds; December 8th, 2020 at 12:22 AM.
Detman101 (December 8th, 2020)
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