I'm generally a supporter of Ebay, as it's allowed me to buy quite a few things I'd never have had otherwise, but I've just been caught....

I won a red J, described as 'polished and re-saced'. Reasonable price, about $13 from the States, so no complaining there. The pen arrived today after about 8 days - again, no complaints there. I opened up the jiffy bag, it was reasonably well wrapped (not as well as the nib I just received from DocNib though!) and when I took it out of the bubble wrap, it looked pretty good. Barrel and cap OK, nib (9550) looked excellent. I went to put it down on my desk though and heard something..... a distinctive fine rattle from inside...... I didn't need to look inside to know what it was - but I did. A fairly fine powder of perished rubber greeted me. Damn! So much for re-saced!!

I've sent the buyer a message but as he's in the US and I'm in the UK, I guess I may have to wait a while for a response. I've been generous and have suggested that he made a mistake and sent me the wriong pen. In the meantime, I may be looking for someone in the UK who could re-sac it for me......?

If their feedback is good, they will want to protect that. A clear mis-statement, based on the description. I would be shocked if they did not just offer a full refund. A re-sac should only cost you about $12-16 max for an Estie.

He's got 100% feedback so yes, I guess he'll want to protect that. I just don't want to have to get into the rigmarole of sending the thing back - as far as the pen itself is concerned, it's pretty nice.

Re-sacing an Estie is quite straight forward. I'm sure you can find someone in the UK to give or sell you a size 16 sac and the process is simple. If you want to undertake the repair, just say so on the Repair Q&A forum and you'll get all the help you need.

It is very hard to hurt and Estie and it may start you down an interesting path!

I think it's beside the point how simple it is or is not to re-sac a pen. This sounds like an egregious error to me, and I would think the seller would offer more than a full refund in order to preserve 100% feedback. To me, making such a mistake and then offering a full refund does not positive feedback make. I'd like to see them offer to send you a new pen without you having to send back the old one or something... but I am one who does not like to fuss, so having to re-package and go to the post office and wait in line to send an international package with a customs form is going to take a fair amount of compensation in and of itself.

I like your attitude--seller sent the wrong pen. I've not made this mistake but I am guilty of other goofs.

I've sent someone a Esterbrook without putting the renew point back in--found it on the table when I returned from the PO.
I replaced the sacs on 10 pens for someone once but I missed one--all cleaned and polished but no sac at all.

It happens and if the seller or restorer is honest, an easily corrected mistake. Complicated by the international shipping but fixable.

Let us know how this works out.

Todd

Yep, I second Todd, depending on the volume of pens an ebay restorer works on it's not at all out of the realm of possibility to make a oops, even one as glaring as that. I would ask the seller to send a resaced section and you will return your section when the new one arrives, you are protected until the new one arrives and the seller isn't out anything once they get your back.

Adam

I certainly agree with that - the fact that the pen itself is really nice otherwise and the guy has nothing suspect at all recorded against him - and indeed we exchanged some pleasant emails about shipping and so on before and after the auction, I'm perfectly happy to put it down to a stupid 'doh!' moment...... I haven't had a reply yet but I can't log onto Ebay at work here (!) so I'll see what comes of it later.

I confess that the idea of having a go at re-sacing it appeals to me, it's just the time thing - I seem to be putting so many things to one side at the moment, I don't think my wife would be all that keen if she spots me engaging in pen repair as well as pen buying!

It may have been an honest mistake. I once received an Esterbrook from a seller that was completely different from what I thought I had ordered. Turned out he had mixed up my order with somebody else's. I reboxed my mistaken pen, shipped it to the intended buyer and 3 days later got my proper one in the post.

As I say, I'm happy to accept an error, what is beginning to concern me is that after 4 days and 4 emails, 3 through Ebay and 1 outside, I've had no response - and he was very quick to reply to my messages before the auction ended. Still I can be generous again and assume he's away...... Besides, I just bought two more nibs, a 9460 and a 2442.

Faith in human nature fully restored........ I've just had a rash of emails in reply - he had been away and is most apologetic for his mistake. He's asked me to send it back to him to be re-saced and will pay for the return postage. Nice one.

Well there ya go!

Steve

And just to close the story, the resaced Estie arrived today. Writes well and I'm happy with it.

Order your sacs to Martin at www.woodbin.ca, in Canada, woodbin@simcom.on.ca. Very nice service.

I received my sacs last week and resacced a Merlin, it is not so difficult.

Hope helps,

Julio

or write Andy Evans: http://www.andys-pens.co.uk/, andys-pens@ukhome.net

He is back next monday from a trip.

Nice service too.

Julio