More Ebay Bull£$!T

[Brian Hancock]

Hi All,

 

Pardon me for venting my spleen on the board but this is just crazy. I put a bid on some F/K last night using "Auction Sniper" and put my max. bid at $179.77. I looked this morning to see a report from "A S" as not having won them. "Fair enough" I thought I've been outbid. I then went to ebay and found they had sold for under $100. I looked at the report again and clicked on the "See Reasons" only to find this.

Dear Ebayer,

to prevent the circumvention of the Ebay.co.uk & Ebay ie. Weapons & Knives policy its not possible for you to bid on this item, Thank you for your understanding.

Obviously F/K are now offensive weapons

 

UK buyers. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

 

Thanks,

 

Brian. (UK)

[Stephen]

Sounds like it cost the seller some money, id let him know not to use Weapons catagory for tosogu.

[Brian Hancock]

Hi Steven,

 

I think I will e-mail him and just make him aware. It was Nihonto Australia who was selling them.

 

Regards,

 

Brian

[Stephen]

he should know better

[nihontoau]

Hello Brian

 

I wasnt aware of the ebay UK policies,As i have not been doing much ebaying lately, I was only recently made aware of this situation by another collector in the UK.

My wife does the ebay listtings, She is now listiing our items under Asian Antiques. As for the FK from last night they went to another Aussie NMB member for the bargain price, I would have preferred your $179. :lol:

 

 

 

John

NIHONTO AUSTRALIA

[Brian Hancock]

Hi John,

 

Thanks for the reply. I'm sure there will be more to come in your listings in the future. At the moment I am looking for a signed Bungo Katana so will keep an eye on you website!

 

Regards,

 

Brian.

[Soshin]

I noticed the same thing last week when I listed a tsuba on eBay. It stopped me from listing the item international on the eBay UK website. If I remember correctly I think I used the “/Asian Antiques/Japanese/Tsuba” categories to list the tsuba. The reason it gave for not allowing the listing was that it was a "hunting knife" or some such thing.

 

Yours truly,

David S. (Soshin)

[Brian Hancock]

Hi David,

 

Yep, Stupidity never has a day off!

 

Brian.

[Lee Bray]

The fault of ebay or the fault of the Government for passing insane weapon laws?

[David Price]

The fault of ebay or the fault of the Government for passing insane weapon laws?

 

Both!

 

Dave P

[peter]

Hi Guys,

frustrating isn,t it,

had the same problems myself, got blocked from bidding on ,, a tassel,

have bought blades from ebay most are on view on NMB and my continuing argument with ebay is how can i buy from 1 seller and not from another, but go round in circles with the same silly comments and excuses from the folks on chat to us page,the law says nihonto are not illegal if come with proof, of method of forging and or made before 1954, so what is ebays problem,

Peter

[Kevin]

The problem is that Ebay have blocked certain categories from UK users. Anything that has 'Sword' or anything sword-related in the category is blocked, even if you log onto the US site. You can't get round it with a proxy using a US exit - I tried. They apparently check the registered address. If the registered address is UK, you're blocked.

 

I've got round it by starting an American arm, just to get round the situation. All perfectly legit and within Ebay's rules. It means I can bid on whatever I want without having that hassle, and then get it shipped here. No doubt other folks have arrived at similar solutions. It also serves for buying from those sellers of anything at all who won't ship outside the US. :-)

 

Kevin

[Lindus]

The problem is that Ebay have blocked certain categories from UK users. Anything that has 'Sword' or anything sword-related in the category is blocked, even if you log onto the US site. You can't get round it with a proxy using a US exit - I tried. They apparently check the registered address. If the registered address is UK, you're blocked.

 

I've got round it by starting an American arm, just to get round the situation. All perfectly legit and within Ebay's rules. It means I can bid on whatever I want without having that hassle, and then get it shipped here. No doubt other folks have arrived at similar solutions. It also serves for buying from those sellers of anything at all who won't ship outside the US. :-)

 

Kevin

 

ebay are not interested in this small market, want volume sales and use of their expensive paypal, check out web sites, more interactive and more likely to buy genuine items. Having said that I sold almost 500 Nihonto items from my collection via ebay, much going to the USA. Since found that most buyers had a "Very" good buy due to my lack of knowledge re value of the items, but was happy at the time so no problems.

Ceased useing them when some Shunga prints from the Turk collection were sold to a chap in Spain who questioned my description and paypal refunded the total....he now has both my prints and money.

 

They have moved on and so should we, at least buying via the Nihonto message board and web sites with some history may take out some of the "Treasure hunting" but assures communication and satisfaction.

Roy

[Kevin]

Hi Roy :-) How's it going? Sometime or other I'll get down to Cornwall to say "Hi!" :-)

 

Well, I sell on Ebay cos it's the largest market going, though it is at the end of a chain of processes. First off, there's the mailing list. New stuff goes out privately and folks have a week to think about it and express an interest. Swords sell that way. After that, there's the website, and after a variable time, there's Ebay. I'd be rather daft to ignore the world's largest market and I do get repeat customers. :-) Folks get plenty of communication and they seem to be very happy, otherwise they wouldn't be coming back. :-)

 

I'm probably very unlikely to make NMB part of the process unless its a sword that's particularly interesting, though if it is really interesting I'd be thinking Christies. The Nakajima Rai is something of an experiment, and rather at the behest of its owner. I rather suspect that I'll be withdrawing it shortly and sending it to shinsa. I have to think of shipping times and time to get through Japanese Customs in order to be at shinsa on time.

 

I rather like to keep business and pleasure separate. :-) Dunno - there's something feels a bit off to me about me selling on here. It is too much like pushing business interests too hard. I'm not worried about feedback - I'm pretty sure it will always be good. I just don't like the feel of being so pushy that I'm turning everything into a business opportunity.

 

That may sound daft, but that's how I feel, so selling on NMB is going to be a rarity for me and against my better instincts. In fact it is quite possible that the Nakajima Rai is going to be my one and only sword advertised on NMB.

 

Kevin