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!
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ReplyDeleteOh, Mark… For the good old days when integrity, effort, years of experience and knowledge, contacts, patience, and hard work paid off. Back then it took months to close a deal using ‘snail’ mail and such, and waiting for stuff to cross the big pond the old fashioned way. Sometimes it might take three or four months to reap the rewards… And you had the worry of waiting for a bottle after hundreds (perhaps thousands) of dollars/pounds had crossed the other way. But, fantastic deals could be made with a little time, patience, and know how. And, I must admit that I was NEVER jilted by someone on the other side. Oh, you had to know your stuff, but, I always found the Brits to be honest to those who deserved it (just as most Americans are from the other side).
ReplyDeleteBut, alas, those days are gone forever! EBay and the other auction houses have leveled the field to where the novices and ignorant can compete with those who have been working in the field for many years, and have much time, study, and effort invested. Now it is money, and not appreciation and knowledge, that is rewarded. Anyone can build a ‘good’ collection with scant knowledge and loads of money. But the very best is still somewhat restricted by those ‘old-timers’ who hold the best and long for a new generation to pick up the torch of preserving those artifacts we have paid so dearly to protect.
The next generation must realize that these collections don’t belong to us. We have vested interests in these old pieces of glass surviving long beyond our dried old bones. It’s a funny thing that we pay dearly to be the protectors of the past for future generations. On a superficial note, you might think that we should be paid to protect the future. But our price is our dedication, and one will protect something that costs thousands above some trifle bought at a street fair… such is the value of our collections.
I now sit on 200 + pieces. Every piece has its own story which I know by heart. I would love to tell those stories to someone who would protect these pieces and their stories for future generations. I don’t know if such people can be found on eBay. EBay requires money and sniping, but no love, appreciation, or knowledge. The days of the past are gone. Today, if it can’t be found by pushing buttons, then it isn’t knowledge worth preserving.
Such is the dilemma of the old-timers… Ron