If some folks are not familiar with this seller, let me fill in a brief outline.
Baron Corpuz and his wife Cecile had lived for many years in Holland. From there, they would frequently hop around neighboring parts of Europe and buy out small failed or long closed shops and would sell much of the rare goods from their own small shop and from their online website - which was in fact set up quite early in the game and before they entered eBay as an additional outlet. This business was known as Renaissance Cycles. I had made numerous purchases from this resource and always had reasonable shipping times from clear across the atlantic. Then, some time back, a fire destroyed their home and business, and they decided to move (back?) to the US where they have grown children living.
They opened up a beautiful retail shop in Santa Barbara specializing in top quality vintage bikes, components and accessories, as had been their specialty overseas. Their problems soon arose from almost simultaneously moving to the US, setting up a new home, scrambling to open up an actual shop, and trying to maintain their extensive eBay listings. Baron (Banana Brain) wound up returning to Europe briefly around a year ago where he had to almost single handedly pack up and see to the shipping arrangements of 3 full container loads of newly purchased vintage small parts for shipping to the US (Think of packing, cataloging and moving 3 complete Semi loads of small components, etc. by yourself). This is when shipments to eBay customers and others all began to bottleneck.
He became ill, due to basically simple exhaustion, and his wife trying to handle all of the paperwork and the household and the shop was totally out of her element now too. They eventually had to temporarily actually close their retail store doors and also hire additional help just to catch up on their online orders. The shop was re-opened in the Spring and I've heard it is a beautiful place for a vintage bike enthuaiast to stop and browse, and drool over some of the very rare and beautiful items.
FWIW, I very much suspect they do not actually strip down perfectly good complete components. I have personally bought some very small odd parts, and they were always still in their original factory parts packaging. Yes, there was once an actual flow of replacement component parts from manufacturers, especially companies like Weinmann and Campagnolo, simply because components did not tend to change every season and were actually designed to be re-buildable and maintainable for years. Sadly, this is a concept pretty much lost since the 1980s & 90s.
Anyway, without intending to be an apologist for the seller - from whom I too have indeed definitely experienced the frustration and annoyance of spotty shipping from time to time - I find that he and his wife are actually sincere and even personable individuals who have every intention and hope of serving their customers and building up a growing customer base. At very least, they do know the vintage bike components they are selling (rather than some eBayers who have no idea of what they bay have found in a closed shop they simply bought out as an investment), they are not deceptive about what they are selling, and are not vanishing eBay merchants with virtual stores - they actually have a bricks and morter business, if anyone actually wanted to personally stop by to complain, to return an item, or hopefully to simply chat.
Unfortunately, I find their prices seem excessively (and for me prohibitively) high. But, I may be just still living in a dream world of prices which once were, and which I sadly may never see again.
As they say, your experience may vary, but that's the basic scoop as I know it.
Bob