My Strangest eBay Transaction

I have mentioned troublesome transactions, but here is the story of my oddest transaction. By odd, I mean a transaction that was really unusual but not necessarily horrible.  It has been too long for me to remember the specific details, but I found where I wrote about it years ago. This was in response to a person questioning whether anyone should risk bidding on an expensive book offered by a seller with 51 negatives.
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I can tell you for a fact that last year he was an extremely slow shipper. Unless you don't mind waiting a very long time and can afford to be out the money for possibly months, don't bid on this auction!

I made the mistake of doing a Buy It Now on one of his books in July 2002. I saw the negatives, but it was a very good Nancy Drew book and the price of $35.00 was well under value. I decided to take the risk, and I knew it was at least a moderate risk. I remember thinking about it for about 5 minutes before doing the Buy It Now. I didn't receive the book and did file a complaint with eBay. He said that he was away on location doing filming (like motion picture - it sounded like he was a director or something) which was causing the delay and that he would put me at the top of the list.

This was in September 2002. By October 2002, I had given up completely on the transaction. Much to my surprise, the book arrived in the mail in May 2003, ten months after the auction, and yes, it was mailed via priority mail two days before I received it. I had not communicated with the seller since September 2002 and couldn't believe he honored the transaction. I still don't get it.

I'm sure this seller deserves many more than the 51 negatives that he has. I know I didn't leave him a negative, and he did deserve one. I think he was NARU'ed (no longer registered) within a month of my purchase so I wasn't able to leave a negative during the 90 day time frame for leaving feedback. He must have worked things out with eBay since last year. If you look at his feedback, there is a one year gap in the feedback. Maybe he has straightened out his life since last year, but even so, there is no way I would bid on this expensive of a book offered by a seller with that many negatives.

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Here is a link to the seller's feedback profile, and this is his negative and neutral feedback as viewed on Toolhaus.org.  I've never forgotten his ID since the transaction was so unusual.  The ID has a total of 157 negatives and neutrals.  He was kicked off eBay for the second and apparently final time in 2007.  It is amazing that eBay let him go on for so long with that kind of record and especially that eBay gave him a second chance after he was kicked off the first time.

It's been so long that I can't remember for certain, but I'm pretty sure that in the fall of 2002 I filed a claim using the buyer protection program that eBay had at that time. That program had a maximum payout of $200 and did not cover the postage cost.  The program also had a $25 deductible.  This meant that the program paid out $35 minus the $25 deductible.  I received $10 back but was out the $25 deductible plus the postage cost. 

In the end, after ten months, I finally had my book and at a $10 discount thanks to eBay's buyer protection program.  How's that for an odd transaction?

The 9th Nancy Drew 1930A-1 Old Clock Dust Jacket

You will recall that the seventh and eighth known examples of the 1930A-1 dust jacket of The Secret of the Old Clock surfaced this fall.  The ninth known example of the 1930A-1 dust jacket surfaced this month.  The book was listed three times before it was finally allowed to run to completion.

Nancy Drew Secret of the Old Clock...1930..Carolyn Keen

The first auction was canceled because the seller's son ripped the dust jacket into two pieces.

Nacny Drew The Secret of the Old Clock 1930..C. Keen

The second auction was canceled because of the misspelling in the title.

Nancy Drew The Secret ofthe Old Clock 1930 1st Blank EP

The third auction was allowed to run and closed at $4,494.00.  I was the third highest bidder, and while I would have been happy to have honored my bid, I deliberately chose to bid less than what I thought was necessary to win the auction.  I thought that I would have had a high chance of winning if I had bid at least $5,000 and a moderate chance of winning if I had bid around $4,500, so instead I bid slightly less than $4,000.  I spent too much this fall, and I am currently in the process of building up my funds again.  I can spend large amounts on books, but I can rein myself in easily when necessary.

Here are the additional photos that the seller sent me of the dust jacket.

 

 

 

The reseller who usually wins these auctions was the second highest bidder.  The highest bidder is someone whose ID I do not recognize from the past, but this person has purchased a wide variety of unrelated high-end books in the last month.  For that reason, I believe that the winning bidder is a reseller as well.

Since the seventh, eighth, and ninth examples of the Old Clock first printing dust jacket have surfaced in rapid succession in just the last few months, I am now quite confident that more examples will surface.  My theory is that the books that are now surfacing are ones that were passed on to the original owner's children, who might now be around 70 years old or so.  Those children are now passing on, and their possessions are getting sold in estate sales.

2/24/11 update:  As I suspected, the book was purchased to resell.  It has been listed on eBay by the buyer for $8,500.

Items Found in Books

I have found a variety of interesting items in books.  One time I found a $20 bill.  That was like finding a treasure.  Another time I was extremely grossed out to unexpectedly find a large clump of hair inside a book as I was reading it.  Yuck!  There is something about hair from an unknown person that is unnerving.  I immediately took the book over to the trash can and tipped the hair into the trash without touching it.  Double yuck!

In just the last week, I was startled as I turned a page and unexpectedly spotted an object.  I was probably thinking of that clump of hair.  I was relieved when the item turned out to be a small dried flower, which I didn't mind leaving in the book.  I just can't deal with someone's hair.

I have also found some interesting vintage items.  Late last year, I found this birth announcement inside a Grace Harlowe book that is a first printing from 1914.

 

  

The birth announcement is approximately 3 inches by 2 inches, so it is very small.  Ardis Wetzel was born on December 27, 1919.  Ardis would be 91 years old if still alive.  It is kind of haunting to find a birth announcement that must have been tucked inside the book ever since Ardis was born and most likely remained inside that book for Ardis' entire life.

I found this ultra-neat bookmark inside an Outdoor Girls book that is nearly 100 years old.  The bookmark might not be quite that old, but it must be more than 80 years old at the very least. 

 

The Paul Jones Middy is exactly the type of outfit that the Outdoor Girls wear on the covers of all of the books.  Visit this website for some information about middies.  I especially like seeing the photographs of actual articles of clothing.

Judy Bolton and Penny Parker Reprints

Someone recently asked about the Judy Bolton and Penny Parker reprints that are up for sale on Amazon.

The Judy Bolton reprints were published by Applewood and have high quality paper. They are softcover books and are very nice.  The cover art is a high quality reproduction of the original Grosset and Dunlap cover art.

I do not know what the quality of the Penny Parker books is. If you go to the Project Gutenberg website, you can download the texts of all of those books for free. Unless you prefer holding a book in your hand, you would be better off getting the texts from Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a37000

The books cannot be found on Gutenberg by searching for Penny Parker.  Instead, the books can be found by searching for Mildred Wirt.

The publisher of the Penny Parker books got the texts by downloading them for free from Project Gutenberg. They also took the scans from Project Gutenberg and used as the cover art.

The person who placed the Penny Parker texts on Gutenberg swiped the scans of the dust jackets from my website without my permission. I don't own the rights to the images, but it was very rude. He asked for permission and was denied, but he did it anyway.

The Mildred Wirt texts were first mentioned in the comments to this post.  I am pretty good at reading intentions in certain situations.  First, the guy stated that I might be interested in the Ruth Fielding and Betty Gordon books that are up at Project Gutenberg.  He then stated that Penny Nichols and Penny Parker would be up soon.  I thought that the comments seemed odd, and I wondered where this was leading.  I knew that something was coming.

My suspicions were confirmed when the guy surfaced again in the comments to this post.  He requested permission to upload my scans to Project Gutenberg.  I denied permission, because I knew that once the scans were on Project Gutenberg, people would be using the scans as the covers of books that would be up for sale.  I knew that the books would soon be up for sale by somebody. 

On January 2, 2011, Jennifer Fisher informed me that my scans were on Amazon on the Penny Parker books.  I checked, and sure enough, they were on Amazon and that was when I discovered that my scans had been placed on Project Gutenberg.  Once scans get copied, they get copied everywhere and with no credit given.

Why did the guy want the scans on Project Gutenberg?  After all, anyone who reads Penny Parker can get the scans from my website.  Could it be that he was intending to profit from the books?

By the way, aside from Project Gutenberg, I am fine with some use of my scans so long as the original source, my website, is mentioned alongside the scan.  Jenn Fisher has used some of my scans in her blog, and she has credited the source.  I am totally fine with that.

What I am not fine with is all of the people who have copied my scans onto their websites and blogs without giving me credit.  Some of these people read this blog and have used my scans.  It is very disrespectful to "borrow" someone's scans when that person went to a large amount of trouble to edit those scans to make them perfect and then just to copy them somewhere else with no credit given.

Of all of the images on my website, the Penny Parker dust jackets are the ones which took by far the longest to make look nice.  I may have spent a couple of hours on each dust jacket.  As anyone who collects Penny Parker knows, it is extremely difficult to acquire decent dust jackets, and even so, the jackets tend to be quite soiled and grubby.  It figures that the images that took the longest are the ones that are getting used so that other people can profit from them.

I don't own the rights to the images, and there is nothing legally wrong with people using them.  I want to make it clear that I know that I have no rights to the images and no legal recourse.  My problem is just the amount of time I spent on them, and my time is devalued when people take the images and copy them everywhere and give no credit as to whom created the edited images.

This is why that for any future sections of my website, I will not edit out the flaws in the dust jackets.  Any scans I do in the future will go up as is, which interestingly enough, will make it less likely that others will copy them.  After all, specific flaws make it obvious when two scans are from the same source.

Last, this is not something that I waste a lot of energy on.  I may get a little annoyed, but I have bigger battles to fight.

Presentation Is Everything

Recently a seller listed two of the Adventurous Allens books in their original dust jackets on eBay.  The Adventurous Allens books are quite scarce, and the dust jackets are significantly more scarce than the bare books. Unfortunately, the seller's presentation left a lot to be desired.

These photos are the photos that were provided in the listings.

 

 

The jackets appear to be in rough shape.  Most importantly, the seller did not picture the spines nor mention anything about the condition of the spines.  Since the spines are what I see when the books are shelved, I am very concerned about the condition of the spines of the books in my collection.  Because of my past unfortunate experiences, I now assume that dust jackets are badly faded on the spine whenever the spines are not pictured. 

I have also asked sellers about fading.  I once had a seller tell me that the dust jacket was not faded at all, and when I received the book, I was unhappy to discover that the jacket's spine had lost around 25% of the color.  Many sellers do not understand the fading issue, so photos are important so that the buyer can decide. 

The seller priced one of the books at around $160, and the other one at around $80.  While I enjoyed the first three Adventurous Allens books, I did not like them enough to pay that much for the dust jackets.  I also thought the jackets were not in good enough condition to pay that much.  

I did not purchase the books, but I checked on them every couple of days to see if they were still listed.  I was, after all, interested but did not wish to pay that much.  After around a week, I noticed that the prices had been lowered to $59 each.  Additionally, the seller had added a picture of the spines to the listings.  I assume that someone had asked for more information.

 

The spines did not look too bad, and the prices were much better.  I thought about it for around ten minutes, as I was still not certain.  Finally, I purchased both books, deciding that the scarcity made the purchases worthwhile.

When I received the books, I was rather pleased with the condition of the dust jackets.

The spine of The Adventurous Allens has better color than what the seller's picture showed.  Both dust jackets look much better enclosed in mylar covers. 

This serves as a good example of how presentation can affect how easily a book sells and how much the seller is able to get for the book.

Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College

Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College was published by Altemus in 1914.  Grace and her friends begin their senior year at Overton.  As usual, another new girl enters the scene.  The newcomer is Patience Eliot.   On page 22, the girls make the following comments about Patience.

The watchers saw the bus open.  Then out of it stepped the tallest girl they had ever seen.

"I believe she is seven feet tall," muttered Emma Dean.  "I'm sure of it."

"Nonsense," laughed Miriam.  "But she is not far from six.  I wish it were daylight, then we could see her face."

When Patience is greeted by Mrs. Elwood, "A voice almost masculine in its depth answered."  Naturally, my modern mind started thinking that the new girl is a man masquerading as a girl, and...  But no, she really is a girl, but I had a good chuckle over my hasty deduction.  Books read so much differently nearly 100 years after they were written.

In this book, Kathleen West backstabs Grace in the worst manner imaginable.  Grace gives Kathleen a great story for her newspaper, all because Grace wishes not to be involved with the police due to a promise she made to her father.  Kathleen can use the story so long as Grace's name is kept out of it.  Kathleen ignores Grace's request and uses her name.  For the first time, we get to see Grace so furious that she admits that she despises Kathleen.  Even though Grace despises someone for the first time, she is still willing to give Kathleen a chance to redeem herself.

As happens in all of these books, Kathleen regrets her actions and becomes Grace's friend near the end of the story.  I still wish the bad girls would get banished or something.  In real life, bad people do not always become good people later.

Mailing Books in Envelopes

Today I received this package.

The envelope was torn in several places. 

The books are new books.  The item specifics on eBay state that a new book is "in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages."  One of the books is noticeably damaged along the top edge.  Most of the pages of that book are wrinkled at the top, and this is the book that can be seen in the last picture.  That book did not arrive in "perfect condition."  This is an excellent example of why books should not be mailed in envelopes.

For today's transaction, I purchased the books for a relative to read. Price was more important than condition.  I will not be informing the seller of the damage since it does not matter for this particular situation.  However, I would have preferred for the books to have arrived in a box undamaged.

This was an eBay transaction, and unfortunately, this is exactly what I expect when I purchase new items from eBay.  New items purchased on eBay almost always arrive with poor packaging.  I avoid purchasing new items on eBay for this reason.  I only did so in this case because I could get the books at a savings.

I usually purchase my new books from Amazon.  My Amazon purchases arrive in boxes or wrapped in sturdy cardboard.  I have had issues with minor damage to Amazon purchases, but that does not happen often.

Recently I participated in a message thread in which several people were recommending envelopes for mailing books.  Not again!  I gave my usual explanation of why envelopes are not good packaging material for books.  Someone stated that he/she only uses Tyvek envelopes which do not rip.  No, no, no!  The books can still be damaged.  People just don't get it.

Many sellers who use envelopes for books state that they have never had a problem and that they have never been told that a book has arrived damaged.  Their conclusion is that the envelopes are safe and secure and that their books never arrive with damage.  Oh, really?  Consider what I have stated in this post.  I will not be informing my seller of the damage.  Does that mean that the seller has never had a book arrive damaged?  Absolutely not.

While most books mailed in envelopes manage somehow to arrive safely, I have had far too many of my purchases arrive with damage.  I do not complain when I receive books in envelopes, but I would greatly prefer for the books to be mailed in boxes.

Soft Positives

Note:  This post was originally written on October 5, 2010 but was not published.  The reason it was never published is because I changed my opinion about the second feedback.  Here is the original post as originally written except for the third paragraph from the end, which I have changed to indicate my new opinion.


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I am now getting soft positives from buyers on eBay. A "soft positive" is a positive feedback comment that contains a slightly negative slant regarding the transaction.

I just knew those Nancy Drew books in rough condition with dust jackets were going to be trouble all the way. First, people did not want to buy them on Bonanzle. Second, I sold them on eBay and received soft positives on both transactions.

The first one came from a buyer who likes to pick all sellers apart. That buyer takes three to four minutes to leave each feedback so that each seller can be adequately critiqued. I was left the comment, "items as decscribed, fairly prompt shipment." Considering that the buyer stated that other sellers were prompt, I interpreted "fairly prompt" as a soft positive. Additionally, I was left low DSRs, since my averages dropped.

In the case of this transaction, I generated the shipping label eight hours after payment was made and mailed the package the next day. I guess I would have to mail the same day in order to be considered "prompt."

When I looked at the rest of the feedback left by this buyer, many positives were soft positives, and the buyer left a number of neutrals and negatives. After reviewing the feedback, I was shocked that I received a positive comment.

The buyer complained about lack of information in some sellers' descriptions. I have to wonder why the buyer made those purchases without the desired information. If an eBay listing contains inadequate information, I either hit the back button or ask a question. What I do not do is buy without the information and then complain about it later.

The buyer also complained about the condition of some books in which the condition was made apparent by the seller. In one case, the buyer complained about torn pages that were not mentioned in the description, thus lowering the value of the book. The seller's description mentioned the torn pages. I love the seller's response to the feedback: "Read description. Torn pages clearly noted to indicate value of your $2 book."

I blocked the buyer on both of my IDs. This type of buyer needs to be avoided at all cost. My primary ID on eBay is the same as my ID on Bonanza. You can find this buyer's feedback easily.

In the other transaction, I received the comment, "As described but presented better than expected. My girls are thrilled!"  I at first interpreted it as a soft positive, but I have since decided that the feedback was meant to be totally positive.  My other feedback caused me to be paranoid about this one.  The following two paragraphs describe what I originally thought about the feedback.

I thought the buyer meant that I described the books accurately in the written description but that the photos made the books seem better than they were described. It is true that I could have provided photos of the books without the dust jackets so that the heavy wear to the books could have been seen. Point taken.

But it makes me wonder... Why is it that other sellers can get away with minimal photos that make the books seem better than they are or rave about the condition to the point of lying, and they do not get soft positives?