Really ...
 

At the CR weekend swap I was sharing a table and sold a couple of things. One of those things was a pair aluminum Reg water bottles and dual handle bar cage. They are now on ebay, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=p5197.c0.m619

I don't mind someone trying to make a buck. I also really doubt he will get what he is asking, those prices are reserved for excellent to NOS condition.

What galls me is the hiding of the actual condition. This set is fair at best. Poor would be more accurate. What the seller doesn't show are the large dents on the back of the bottles. On the cage, the part that attaches to the stem is broken and not shown. The cage is also a fine rattle-can silver. There is some great rust underneath the paint. Some buyer will be pissed when they show up.




On a side note, FedEx delivered my bike from North Carolina. No damage. :thumb:

Actually, I see a pic that does show dents. As for the other flaws, it is hard to tell if the cage has been painted unless someone said so. The broken part I don't see, though.

Someone cashin' in on a name.........

Been there, done that. Called a seller out in a public thread on the very same thing. He found my thread and bashed my character. Brace yourself.

Those aren't the dents I was referring to. It is worse, much worse.

Call the POS out. I like to think that once upon a time there wasn't as much greedy scum running around, and that if people would start calling it as it is rather than "minding their own business" then maybe things would get a little better.

My character needs some bashing. :D

Facts are facts. What isn't being shown is the story.

Shill bid it up and then don't pay due to full disclosure if damage. I have a lot of free time....

He is a CR member and pretty well established in the C&V world, odd.

I've heard of the buyer being so well protected, on this board no less. Let the guy sell it and when it gets returned and he loses his time, postage, and patience than he will be getting what he deserves.

Oh! Well, that stinks worse than the freezer I just cleaned out.

do you mind disclosing what you sold them to him for?

Personally I think the guy is a terrible ebay dealer (how many years does it take to figure out how to format your pictures so they don't run completely off the page!). But honestly there's no crime in buying something at a swap meet that you think you can sell for more. I do it all the time. As a rare record dealer it's pretty much how I make my living.

If he paid your asking price (or close) and did not give you a song and dance about needing it for himself to get a better price, I see no reason to call foul. As for his assesment of the condition, let him deal with his customer on that. There's a good chance somebody will buy it an be perfectly happy with it.

Again, I'm no fan of this guy but there's far worse hacks selling vintage bike stuff on ebay right now.

Don't know about the handle bar cage but the bottles I have seen before - They are $20.00 and with a stove and cup included... Or maybe not...

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=680100

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=203624

Regardless of how you make your living or whether I agree with it or not, seriously, you're supporting a guy when someone is blatantly telling you that they bought some items from them at a swap that were in poor condition and representing them as great condition items and hiding major flaws? And then saying "oh well, let the buyer have to try to deal with his mis-representation of the condition."? I'll not get too far into what this says of your character, but I really don't think your biggest problem should be the fact that he has poor marketing has has the pictures running off the page. I'm definitely glad iab felt the need to call foul on this shady situation, and I hope others call foul in the future. I also hope this shady deal goes south because of it. If this is the way you make a living, oh well, but good for anyone who stands up against it. If you don't try to push this kind of thing, good for you, but in that case don't stand up for shady flippers. I'm definitely against people trying to rip someone off to make a buck for themselves, and if you're a flipper you should be too. It just gives other flippers a bad name.

I recently saw on Ebay france one single alu bottle with a huge dent along it sell for 120 euros.
To be honest if i saw a pair of these bottles for a very good price then i would buy them to sell on Ebay as well.

Also if i could afford to buy a pair of bottles on ebay from the 1950s i would expect them to be pretty much weathered from the years of use.
I suspect if someone buys them then they would be happy with them even with the faults you have mentioned.
The rough bits add to the nostalgia of the pieces.
Everyone has a different point of view when it comes to condition and the guy has said good condition for their age.
I would imagine a few dents and a broken bracket is good condition for their age.

I don't agree with calling someone out on a public forum though.
It really does sound like sour grapes and that you have put this on here to try and make him have a no sale.
Not cool in my opinion.

Actually the winner doesn't have to send the item back to get a partial (50%) refund.

For what this is worth, the Ebay seller of those bottles is the seller who sold me a NOS white Turbo saddle. The saddle has two small rips, one fairly large scrape in the top and rust on the rails. NOS, yes, but not in NOS condition. I felt miserably mislead and greatly resentful.

In all fairness to the Ebay seller, he did tell me to return the saddle. Not bloody likely. That would leave me almost a hundred bucks in the hole, for something I would no longer have. And who is to say that the seller, who in my mind had already displayed his dishonesty, would actually refund my money. My guess is that this person routinely hides damage and hopes that his return policy will prevent most people from bothering to return the item, as was the case with me.

After a great deal of thought, I decided to and did leave neutral feedback. For that, he retaliated in print and called me a liar. This is the saddle of which I speak. You can see the two offending scrapes or creases on the top. You can't see the two small rips on the underside edge of the white leather. Nor can you see the rust pitted rails that I did my best to clean up...
http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...e_Saddle_3.jpg

Though the damage is not earth shattering, it is present and should have been mentioned, particularly the rust. And, for what it is worth, none of the damage was visible, or mentioned, in his listing pictures.

He also sold on ebay one of the batch of Italian contract frames that were such a mess they didn't pass muster with Masi USA and were dumped. Some were eventually painted as Masis and resurfaced. In the ebay auction, the seller disclosed none of this, simply stated that it was a NOS Masi. I believe the one on ebay even had Gran Criterium decals (but my memory could be faulty there). Jim Allen on the CR list spotted the flakiness and called it out on the list, as I recall. Here's one of those frames:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/img_src...if/3916661600/

It was intended to be a Nuova Strada or Gran Corsa (I think Gran Corsa) originally, but the build quality was too poor. Note that the bike in the link has older style Masi decals and no model name decal. Seller didn't exactly lie, but it seemed like far from full disclosure.

I'm not in favor of calling people out in a public forum, and yet if I was seriously considering buying them, I would be glad that I found this thread. I get the impression that iab is attempting to warn others rather than vent about a missed opportunity. The fact that respected forum members are sharing similiar experiences only confirms iab's claims. How else can buyers be warned of a questionable seller if not in a forum like this?

But he's offering free shipping! :innocent:

Neal

I remember seeing those bottles for sale at the CR meet, and thinking they were cool but not suitable for any of my bikes, so I didn't examine them closely or price check them. I didn't know you were running that table iab, otherwise I would of introduced myself (I was wearing a carolina blue campy t-shirt).

For that kind of money I'd wait for a nice Coloral bottle or two. Not easy to find but I think they're much prettier.

Scott

What didn't you understand about the OP?

Again, I don't care if this guy makes a million off of these bottles. I love capitalism as much as anyone out there.

What I do mind is a complete lack of disclosure. There are no pictures of the dents or the broken cage. There is no mention in the description. And I will call it out because as the previous owner, I know these things as facts. Do you disagree that facts shouldn't be known?

Does anyone in this thread think trying to keep the item's condition should be kept a secret and not public?

Sour grapes?

Really?

Last year a Paris Sport showed up on local CL. Not knowing if it was one of the common French mass produced models or a custom built I agreed to meet the seller at a business parking lot. On the phone the guy told me he had been out of work for over a year and he had sold everything he had and he was leaving the area. I met him and the bike was all apart. The CL pictures must have been as he got it completely assembled. This is not the kind of bike I would even take free . Very low end French bike needing a lot of work. I felt sorry for the guy and bought the bike. I went buy the place that rebuilds bike and resales them to help kids get bikes to give them the bike but the gate was locked. I went home found some new 27" tires and used cables and housing and made it ridable. I Listed it a week later on CL for $20 more than I paid for it. I was loosing money but I wanted it gone, I got a email from the seller calling me greedy and a few other names. I offered it to him for the same prise I paid him for it but he would not come and get the bike. To my surprise it sold quickly and the guy who bought it drove over 100 miles and he was happy with it.