Oh I've had a grand time this week..... !
Sorry bottle people out there, hoping to pick up some useful earlyglass hints and wrinkles, this blog will be a downright get-it-off-my-chest moan, but then I am 50 so now a fully paid up member of the grumpy old men....and this is my blog and I'll ...how does it go...cry if I want to...cry if i want to...
So here I am on a certain forum, been there several months, putting nice pretty pics of items I've picked up, the better stuff of course, because it's nice for diggers and collectors to see, stuff they don't see very often, because it usually gets bought by the big money guys and never seen again, because of course I want to show off a little, and this thread is so popular that it gets pinned, oh my! But this is the bottle world and someone wants to spoil it, "someone" out there who also is commercially involved in the bottle scene gets a bit jealous/frightened about this, and they are retentive enough to point out that I am getting these pics on there with, naughty of naughties, my website address and presumably making all sorts of money selling these items to people looking at them on the forum...oh if it was only that easy!...
Ok it's sort of fair enough reaction if you're that way inclined. they themselves are paying money to be associated with this forum and place ads and use the facilities etc etc, and they reckon I am not and should be. But then I'm making sod all out of doing this apart from perhaps some general flag waving publicity for my one man band, so the mods have to rather embarassingly ask me to either pay similar fees or.....well not sure what...
Now for a little while I was half a mind to pull the plug entirely, but that would be entirely what these business people would like, and would disappoint the genuine diggers and collectors who liked the thread and pics, so I go for the literary gagging and "it'll never happen again sir" approach and have my thread unpinned and my addresses removed and I'm not allowed to ever mention that these items might be for sale ever again, for ever and ever, amen.
Now this is a pretty low point in my bottle life. I've come up against competitive reactions before but this sort of pettiness is a first. So what is the answer to my depression? OK, WE FIGHT BACK in a way they won't expect....this is all about the pettiness of money, so lets GIVE a bottle away, a good one, give it to whoever is lucky enough to win a free draw for it. I've done this before two or three times and it was a really pleasant and refreshing experience, people didn't seem to expect it, done though the forums, and then my real brainwave....if people could enter the draw simply by logging onto the various forums, and the more forums they lg onto the more chances they get, it also gives the forums more new members and more traffic and more interest, and got to be good for the hobby...
So now several days later and after several hundred rather boggled entrants, plus TWO MORE PRIZES added by a couple other pragmatic guys, joining in the fun, good prizes too which I'd like myself, but dammit I can't enter my own draw! There's always a cloud to the silver lining.:):)
So hundreds of entries so far, and loads of goodwill, and all this unusual generosity of feeling later, I'm feeling a happier bunny, and pretty pleased with myself, and .......oh, yes,.... well unfortunately as a side effect, my name is now on the lips and posts of hundreds of bottle guys worldwide, I've had loads of complimentary emails, quite a few direct sales from new clients and all in all it's pretty much St Mark of Earlyglass, oh dear! ....Guess I'd better thank the guy who prefers to complain and was worried I'd be profiting by not paying my fees, it would never have happened without him....anyone else want to complain? please?
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Friday, 10 June 2011
bottles on ebay ..... or not....
I guess most people reading this will have had some experience of ebay, buying or selling. It's a bit like losing your virginity...well I'm guessing it's what that might be like :)....a bit frightening, something you haven't done but know everyone else has and they all seem to be very good at it and pretty cool about it all. You also know it will have to happen sometime....
Of course you gotta take precautions. You don't want yourself or the person you're conducting ebay intimacy with to get landed with responsibilities you aren't ready for. You make and save your first experimental searches, nobody tells you about the late and sleepless nights constantly checking them over, the having to get up in the middle of the night to see how your potential progeny are doing and ultimately bid for them, then your selling wants constant attention. then the nervous waiting for the safe delivery, then you get the tantrums, the abusive language and the unreasonable behaviour when it isn't what people were expecting, and you sometimes get a disappointment yourself....
But you wouldn't be without it all now despite it all......ah well!
In the real world however, everyone who uses ebay ends up hating it, or rather not it but "them". The arrogance of ebay and it's minions, their seemingly endless desire to screw even more money out of us and to continually fix what isn't broken is now legendary.
On the other hand, unfortunately ebay is still and probably will remain for a long while the biggest continual international market, watched over by millions, the source of bottles from all the continents, from the embarassingly plain and uncollectable bits of machine made grotty trash that some poor deluded individual has wasted time and effort posting and for some reason thinks someone will want to pay money for....to some very nice and very rare items that would take you years to find by any other method. Unfortunately lots of other people also have too much time and can trawl ebay as long as you do and compete for these nice things. Many of them have more money than sense, or let their egos get the better of them. Tie and again you can leave good bids on desperately wanted items, only to have them snatched away in the last few seconds. Some of them pay way, way too much, unless of courseit is an item you are selling...then the ebay sods law rule is that those people are not allowed to spot your items that day, or if they do, suddenly develop a sense of reason and sanity and refuse to bid any more than an insulting low amount on your item. Other sods law rules such as...the number of watchers is inversely proportional to the number of actual bidders....there is a further level - the more people that email you asking silly questions about the item and want further images and info and show real interest and say how much they want one of these and have been looking for years, the more likely it is that your item will fall flat on it's face with barely a bid on, not even getting to a fraction of a very low reserve....
....why oh why do people waste everybody's time by leaving paltry bids on an item that is blatantly worth a hundred times what they have bid, and then don't bother to increase them at all...
...Ahh but never mind, ebay will turn us all into grumpy old men. On the other hand every so often, like today I received in the post an item that I bid on and got for it's startng price, that presumably nobody else spotted and bid for, that is so, so rare and is worth 10 times what it cost me... and then ebay is beautiful, and God is lovely and all your family's squabbles and pestering and noise are as the gentle twittering of the chaffinches....for you have succeeded and beaten off the competition.
Of course ebay is a fickle lover, it beguiles and cheats, promises and withdraws its promises, one week an item doesn't get a bid, the next week it flies. One week a common item you'd barely give garden shed space to fetches hundreds of £'s, the next week a rarity gets half what it would at any bottleshow.
In general, ebay is excellent at selling c***p. Not every week, but eventually. Use it to get rid of all your long stored away and forgotten common bottles, but do just make sure they are bottles that nobody else is presently offering. The guy trying to sell an Owbridges Lung Tonic usually wastes his money, but now with the amended listing costs, he's only wasting his time. Equally sealed dated onions do not sell to their full potential acheivable almost anywhere else. BUT the fees to put a quality bottle on ebay in front of millions of collectors are actually rather cheap in comparison with advertising to those numbers by any traditional methods, so sometimes it makes sense to put a world quality bottle on ebay without the least hope (or rather intention) of selling it....simply for the advertising it produces....
Oh, and for Codd's sake, if you are selling, NEVER (unless you don't actually want to sell it) put a high start price on your bottle....guaranteed KILLER of any potential bidding.
Oh my, just lots of boring ramble and still no pretty bottle pics, oh well live in hope!
Of course you gotta take precautions. You don't want yourself or the person you're conducting ebay intimacy with to get landed with responsibilities you aren't ready for. You make and save your first experimental searches, nobody tells you about the late and sleepless nights constantly checking them over, the having to get up in the middle of the night to see how your potential progeny are doing and ultimately bid for them, then your selling wants constant attention. then the nervous waiting for the safe delivery, then you get the tantrums, the abusive language and the unreasonable behaviour when it isn't what people were expecting, and you sometimes get a disappointment yourself....
But you wouldn't be without it all now despite it all......ah well!
In the real world however, everyone who uses ebay ends up hating it, or rather not it but "them". The arrogance of ebay and it's minions, their seemingly endless desire to screw even more money out of us and to continually fix what isn't broken is now legendary.
On the other hand, unfortunately ebay is still and probably will remain for a long while the biggest continual international market, watched over by millions, the source of bottles from all the continents, from the embarassingly plain and uncollectable bits of machine made grotty trash that some poor deluded individual has wasted time and effort posting and for some reason thinks someone will want to pay money for....to some very nice and very rare items that would take you years to find by any other method. Unfortunately lots of other people also have too much time and can trawl ebay as long as you do and compete for these nice things. Many of them have more money than sense, or let their egos get the better of them. Tie and again you can leave good bids on desperately wanted items, only to have them snatched away in the last few seconds. Some of them pay way, way too much, unless of courseit is an item you are selling...then the ebay sods law rule is that those people are not allowed to spot your items that day, or if they do, suddenly develop a sense of reason and sanity and refuse to bid any more than an insulting low amount on your item. Other sods law rules such as...the number of watchers is inversely proportional to the number of actual bidders....there is a further level - the more people that email you asking silly questions about the item and want further images and info and show real interest and say how much they want one of these and have been looking for years, the more likely it is that your item will fall flat on it's face with barely a bid on, not even getting to a fraction of a very low reserve....
....why oh why do people waste everybody's time by leaving paltry bids on an item that is blatantly worth a hundred times what they have bid, and then don't bother to increase them at all...
...Ahh but never mind, ebay will turn us all into grumpy old men. On the other hand every so often, like today I received in the post an item that I bid on and got for it's startng price, that presumably nobody else spotted and bid for, that is so, so rare and is worth 10 times what it cost me... and then ebay is beautiful, and God is lovely and all your family's squabbles and pestering and noise are as the gentle twittering of the chaffinches....for you have succeeded and beaten off the competition.
Of course ebay is a fickle lover, it beguiles and cheats, promises and withdraws its promises, one week an item doesn't get a bid, the next week it flies. One week a common item you'd barely give garden shed space to fetches hundreds of £'s, the next week a rarity gets half what it would at any bottleshow.
In general, ebay is excellent at selling c***p. Not every week, but eventually. Use it to get rid of all your long stored away and forgotten common bottles, but do just make sure they are bottles that nobody else is presently offering. The guy trying to sell an Owbridges Lung Tonic usually wastes his money, but now with the amended listing costs, he's only wasting his time. Equally sealed dated onions do not sell to their full potential acheivable almost anywhere else. BUT the fees to put a quality bottle on ebay in front of millions of collectors are actually rather cheap in comparison with advertising to those numbers by any traditional methods, so sometimes it makes sense to put a world quality bottle on ebay without the least hope (or rather intention) of selling it....simply for the advertising it produces....
Oh, and for Codd's sake, if you are selling, NEVER (unless you don't actually want to sell it) put a high start price on your bottle....guaranteed KILLER of any potential bidding.
Oh my, just lots of boring ramble and still no pretty bottle pics, oh well live in hope!
Thursday, 2 June 2011
leadup to the BIG BOTTLE WEEKEND!!!!
...oooh we're getting excited now! the BBR is coming...!......
as a warmup the Minstead show in Dorset this weekend was a solid little success, always a pleasant atmosphere show, friendly and low pressure. Lots of new people introduced to this fascinating hobby and several thinking of visiting the Summernational. Hadn't quite dawned on me that many local collectors only go to their local shows, so they can only buy there, the bottles there are the best ones they see in person, and they only sell there. So there are opportunities for buying and selling at every show....but there's nothing like the SummerNational...!
If you've never been to this supreme spectacle of bottles and bottle people socialising, sorry but you can't count yourself a fully fledged bottle collector...and you've missed out on experiencing the biggest bottle buzz on this island, the continent and probably several others....two and a half solid days of bottle buying, bargaining and beguiling. Display competitions that are now blowing away anything I've seen in any other country, with quality, rarity and above all display creativity. Now two auctions, an unreserved bargain burrowing one on Saturday, and the international leading top level item auction on the Sunday, where there will be some stiff competition and not a few ego battles between bidders. Throw in a Sunday morning boot fair (sharpened elbows a necessity), turn a whole village into a bottle equivalent of Glastonbury festival, where every pub in the village will be stacked out with bottlers from all corners of the country, all corners of the world, where Geordies converse with Cornishmen, and Australian collectors swap salad oils with Swedish guys. 40,000square feet of bottle stalls, a special social evening of prizegiving, recognition, beer imbibing and bottle story swapping around the tables and bars. Add the Yorkshire openness and friendliness, some good weather, camping nearby for those diehards, and B&B's, hotels and guesthouses for the rest of us softies, full up for miles around....
Almost forgotting the excellent antique centre where I've never yet failed to buy something, and the stallholders Friday afternoon free noshup with the famous hot local pork pies....it just goes on....
There is one warning, Monday withdrawal syptoms!
You really can walk round and round delving into the boxes underneath of boxes of bottles still with their dirt, some of them even dug the day before, and Sunday often has many stalls and stock different to Saturday, so definitely you have to stay both the days.
I think you get the pitcture
I like this show
The highlight of my year.
....which either means my life is very sad....or this show is just such an addiction.
I think it is the latter....
as a warmup the Minstead show in Dorset this weekend was a solid little success, always a pleasant atmosphere show, friendly and low pressure. Lots of new people introduced to this fascinating hobby and several thinking of visiting the Summernational. Hadn't quite dawned on me that many local collectors only go to their local shows, so they can only buy there, the bottles there are the best ones they see in person, and they only sell there. So there are opportunities for buying and selling at every show....but there's nothing like the SummerNational...!
If you've never been to this supreme spectacle of bottles and bottle people socialising, sorry but you can't count yourself a fully fledged bottle collector...and you've missed out on experiencing the biggest bottle buzz on this island, the continent and probably several others....two and a half solid days of bottle buying, bargaining and beguiling. Display competitions that are now blowing away anything I've seen in any other country, with quality, rarity and above all display creativity. Now two auctions, an unreserved bargain burrowing one on Saturday, and the international leading top level item auction on the Sunday, where there will be some stiff competition and not a few ego battles between bidders. Throw in a Sunday morning boot fair (sharpened elbows a necessity), turn a whole village into a bottle equivalent of Glastonbury festival, where every pub in the village will be stacked out with bottlers from all corners of the country, all corners of the world, where Geordies converse with Cornishmen, and Australian collectors swap salad oils with Swedish guys. 40,000square feet of bottle stalls, a special social evening of prizegiving, recognition, beer imbibing and bottle story swapping around the tables and bars. Add the Yorkshire openness and friendliness, some good weather, camping nearby for those diehards, and B&B's, hotels and guesthouses for the rest of us softies, full up for miles around....
Almost forgotting the excellent antique centre where I've never yet failed to buy something, and the stallholders Friday afternoon free noshup with the famous hot local pork pies....it just goes on....
There is one warning, Monday withdrawal syptoms!
You really can walk round and round delving into the boxes underneath of boxes of bottles still with their dirt, some of them even dug the day before, and Sunday often has many stalls and stock different to Saturday, so definitely you have to stay both the days.
I think you get the pitcture
I like this show
The highlight of my year.
....which either means my life is very sad....or this show is just such an addiction.
I think it is the latter....
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