Doh, I get that - and that's precisely what my argument was all about: the item was USED; not damaged, or even pounded by a hammer - it had grease residue on it and marks in the spring channel consistent with use. Geez, I thought that was plainly spelled out above, but I must have been mistaken.

H76: I'm absolutely certain Ebay made the call on the seller; the case was found in my favor barely 5 minutes after I escalated with a detailed recap of the situation. They (you) did right by me, the seller has his parts back and can list again (I'd advise caution as to him listing them as NOS again, of course) and I'm only out a few bucks for return shipping. It's all good.

Btw, here's a dilemma: I've not yet left feedback. What do you guys think? Should I just let that sleeping dog lie, or tell the truth/shame the devil? BF C&V is one thing, but Ebay's another thing alltogether. Suggestions appreciated.

DD

Oh, and iab: regarding asking for pictures, this is the last exchange I had when I did just that:

ME: Since the box is open, could you please add some photos of the contents to the auction? Failing that, is it possible that you could email photos of the parts to me? I'm interested in the BIN as-is, but would like to confirm parts, condition - all that stuff. Thank you.

Jeff

SELLER: I've got a 100% rating on 571 E-Bay transactions confirming my honesty & integrity. If that isn't good enough for you, I would prefer that you didn't bid on this item.

ME: My question had nothing to do with honesty and integrity - don't know why you took it that way. I'd like to see what I get for my 200 bucks, that's all. Personally, I don't know why a seller would take three pics of the box but not the contents, but whatever. I can't bid on something I know no details about, so as you wish - I won't.

A little assistance to your potential buyers might result in a sale - may very well have done so here. It's too bad you had to consider my request for more pictures to detail what I would get for my money as an affront to your honesty/integrity. Lighten up a little

SELLER: The point is, that if I say that a model is complete & unbuilt...IT"S COMPLETE & UNBUILT. I've got 571 people to back that up. Besides, you wouldn't know whether the kit was complete or not just by looking at a few photos. I have nothing more to say on this subject, but somehow I have the feeling you have to have the last word.

Nope, I had nothing more to say, so he ended up having the last word. Note how he feels that since he's got a 100% rating that means I should trust him sight-unseen? And it's obvious he truly believes this, too.

I prefer to avoid this kind of thing; fact is, some people get worked up about how they're perceived with barely the slightest provocation. In my experience, especially domestically for almost 4 years, I've found these sorts of people to be the most downright untrustworthy on the planet.

DD

If someone takes a hammer to it, it's not new old stock anymore. That new part is gone. It might be unused, but if someone bangs the crap out of something and then posts a picture so only the unbanged side shows, it's not new anymore. A few scratches, bumps, a little shelf wear is one thing, but dinged and dented to heck and gone doesn't apply anymore just because someone didn't use something. If it's been abused, whether that's in the course of intended use or not, it's not new. I had the same fight when I bought a "new old stock" care bear for a niece's Christmas present. Picture only showed the front, said NOS, seller had good ratings and claimed it was left over from her toy store that went out of business. It arrived all mildewy, the back was threadbare, and the tags were all wrinkled and torn. She finally admitted that the facility she'd stored them in had gotten flooded, but it still had those wrinkled torn up tags, so that meant it was NOS. I call bull****. New​ old stock means new, not unused but beat to ****.

Not DD's issue, but my pet peave with people just throwing the word NOS around. A week or so back there was someone wanting to know the value of his NOS frame. Not the bike that he'd built up from the frame, but the frame itself after he tore the pieces off. I suppose if he never rode that frame, it'd still be NOS technically, but, once he built it up, to me, that's no longer NOS. To me, it looked like he'd ridden it too. Just saw it was a keyword that raised the value of things so he threw it on there.

Then why did you bid?

By your definition, nearly nothing would be NOS. In your case, you should bid on nothing listed as NOS.

Problem solved.

Please re-read - you will note I elected not to. The case in point above is clearly other-related, not bike-related.

DD

New old stock used to refer to old inventory that a store had that had never sold. Sat on a back shelf somewhere, kind of dusty, a bit older, maybe a little scuffed by all the stuff sitting next to it, but still in good shape. That's what people pay extra for. Now NOS has been inflated to include pretty much whatever a seller wants it to mean. Sometimes even sellers with good reputations. Which is why I rarely buy things listed as NOS anymore. But I do remember when it had a meaning that had some value to it.

The feedback should reveil the truth: "Seller advertised NOS, item was used".

Short, succinct, and truthful.

Then what was wrong with the pictures for the OP listing?

It is amazing what some people call NOS. I purchased a set of NOS wheels at a fair price from a seller on CR list. I trusted the guy....I mean it is CR list Got the wheels and they were clearly not NOS. Braking surfaces worn and it was obvious the hubs had been built prior to this. (Spoke marks) Called him on it and he said at most they were ridden around the block. Pointed out that annodizing does not wear off in a ride around the block. He told me I was too picky. I kept the wheels because I had not seen them before and have not seen the like since.

So again, by your admitted subjective definition, nothing is NOS and your life got much easier.

What's the problem?

Even Reagan would trust but verify.

The thing is, it's not subjective. That USED to be the definition of NOS that everyone went by. And then some grifters decided to change it. Apparently, you don't see a problem calling stuff NOS when it's banged up and crappy, but some people with integrity still do. If you take good pictures and describe stuff accurately, it's no issue, but many people take pictures to hide flaws and don't describe things accurately hoping that they can get away with it because returning stuff is a pain.

I think there's some confusion here. My example (for another auction, from about a month ago, for a 1/12 scale muti-media Ferrari 312 PB kit in excess of $200) was used here to illustrate what usually happens when I ask for additional photos. In the case of the model, the seller took three photographs of the outer box and none of the contents of the box. This type of model comes in a box that is not shrink-wrapped, therefore opening it to display the contents is normally not an issue.

I was unfamiliar with this kit and wanted to know if all body panels opened and what kind of detail was contained within. A pic of the contents would've satisfied my curiosity as I know what to look for in a model I like, but had no specifics as to this particular one. The seller took my question as an integrity-check instead of a request for "what am I getting for my money?"

Model builders will spend a great deal on kits that are highly detailed, but less on the basic "curbside" types that lack engines, opening panels and the like. I wasn't willing to plunk over $200 down unless I knew more.

Now, more often than not I ask for more photos in cases like this, or when an item is represented only from one side (sorta like looking for all angles of a bike). In the case of the brake bolts (which were a BIN), well, that's a part where I think one can assume all is well from a set of 4 photos, but in this case, upon review, the backside of the spring-carrier portion (alloy) was not shown in those auction photos. I didn't even note this until after I received the bolts and noticed the residue and stress-marks - I checked back to the auction pics to see how I'd missed something so obvious. When I saw that portion of the bolts wasn't depicted in the photos, I understood.

I still do. Even when I take pics of parts for sale, I probably don't get them from every single angle; the difference is that if someone were to ask, I'd be more than happy to provide whatever view they wanted.

I hope this clears everything up

DD

That's all fine and dandy if the seller allows you to verify. In my case, he basically told me to eff off if I couldn't trust him. Great business model, huh? And what really sucks is that the model in question is exceedingly rare and depicts an all-time favorite Ferrari subject of mine. Finding another one for sale by someone else is going to take a long, long time.

DD

That Santa Barbara switch name seller wouldn't have a type of fruit in one of the alias names would it? if so, I have been raked by that particular seller multiple times in and off ebay. Grrrrr....

My what a brilliant observation.

I usually trust people a bit more if they say......"...never used, but has a bit of shop wear..." So far all the components I bought described by their sellers as such (And I've bought quite a lot of them already) are pretty much what was described by the seller. I also learned through the years that most of the time it's easy enough to clean off the "shop wear" and come up with something just a hair under NOS condition and saving lots of money buying the non-NOS stuff. I figure that I plan to mount as much of the stash I have on project bikes, NOS or not, so why pay NOS prices when one can get the same except for maybe a very few minute scratches here and there, that most likely never be seen/ noticed anyway?
I used to insist on buying just NOS stuff, but ever since the prices for most of them had skyrocketed in the last few years, I just had to figure out alternatives around it and I found that "shop worn items", as long as the "wear" is not so bad (insist on seeing good pics of the item before buying) and serviceable, work out very well for me......
Just my take on the whole NOS thing. Sure I'll still go for NOS when I chance upon a bargain, but I'm not insistent on getting only NOS stuff these days.....

^ +1

I can pretty much make stuff look new - if not NOS - again, so I rarely get bitten by the NOS bug. However, I have a soft-spot for NOS hot-rod items

DD

The problem is NOS means something. You're right, there's not a lot of stuff that's NOS. That's why there's a PREMIUM for the NOS tag. The problem lies in people twisting the definition of that premium tag to get more money for their **** that doesn't meet that premium standard.

Look at the use words "rare" or "mint" on any sort of sale site. How much stuff advertised as "rare" is actually rare? How about "mint?" There's a definition for "mint." "Mint" does not mean 'in sorta nice shape with rust and a few dings and only used for a couple years.' It means 'new and uncirculated as it came from the mint.' Anything else is bull****.

So, "What's the problem?" The problem is words mean things. When people choose to assign their own meanings to words, they become useless. It's disingenuous to play semantics games as in the case of your "hammer" claim.

Coincidence you mentioned hot rod parts......
I watched the movie MadMax yet again Friday on TCM, and that Weiand supercharger on Max's black interceptor with the really cool air intake scoop really caught my eye this time. Quite a bummer though when I found out later that the supercharger on the car was fake and just a hollow prop though....

That's a good policy and one that I've been trying to migrate towards myself. If they say there's shop wear and I don't see it, I'll ask to see it or ask for more details, or, for something that it doesn't matter, just expect a bit of wear when it comes. Most of the time, if I'm expecting it and going to use it anyway, it doesn't need to NOS because it's not going to stay that way long.

I used to sell bike parts on ebay but I never made enough money to justify continuing. I would sell parts and describe them as like NOS...but when I sold NOS it would have original packaging un used. If the parts were really like new, you might have been being too picky.

Can you find the same parts again that you were looking for?

I'm sure I can - they pop up from time to time; in fact, I already have a used pair - got them from miamijim - and they're doing duty on my most recent Medici build.

DD

Yup. I just wanted to know how it happened.