http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=280261184923

And then there is this green ripple effect pen @ $695.oo

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ME:B:SS:US:1123

OH MY GOODNESS!!!! Don't anybody bid on this pen!!! I just have to have it for my vintage HELVETIC VISAVAC VELVET TOUCH collection!!!

$695 seems fair for "the prefered [sic] collector color".

I want one of his Rare Esterbrook 1551s valued at $215.00

I am SO never buying a pen on ebay.

Neill

!!!! PHILLIP BENZ FOR PRESIDENT !!!!!!!!!

There are affordable pens on eBay, but they've all been exposed to the element.

I'm curious how someone keeps a pen that old that doesn't allow any deterioration of the sac at all. Says its all original with no replacement parts, but has a supple sac. I want to keep my pens in the same sort of environment

Whoever wrote up that second advertisment needs to check a damn dictionary.

"Antique". Made in 1924? Not in my book.

An "antique" is anything that is 100 years or OLDER. Not the other way.

Also, it doesn't look very 'green', either. Looks black chased hard rubber.

I also see a 'Warranted, 14kt' on the nib. Isn't this an indication of a third-tier pen made by a company that could not afford to manufacture its own, company-stamped nibs?

Staggering. I also saw a couple of Esterbrooks from the Benz collection recently. Did you know that an Esterbrook J is worth $250.00?

I have several Esterbrooks at the moment. I'm not greedy -- I'll gladly part with them for only $200.00 apiece.

The reality is that you'll miss a lot of very nice pens.......

So what stance does Ebay take on this kind of selling?

Perhaps we should prepare a list of questions for EBay to ask the seller ?

I also note the first one had a bid

Did anyone ever notice that the lighting is always bad in his pics so that you can never really see
the true color(s) of whatever he's selling?

John

I don't think a dictionary is going to help you there. How old something has to be to be considered antique is as much a matter of personal choice as anything else. In the U.S. you can get Antique or Classic registration plates for a car that is 25 yrs old or older. On the other hand, historians often use to antique to refer specifically to things from the Classical world. Of course, roadside antique shops sell anything that looks quasi old or valuable, regardless of date of manufacture.

Same problems with "vintage" and "classic". Without a definitive guide to define such terms in writing instrument collecting, everyone makes their own decision.

Many people use "antique" to mean "not purchased at Wal-Mart last week," but to be accurate something can't really be called an antique unless it's at least one hundred years old. Anything younger might be "vintage," but not "antique."

If you subscribe only to definition 2a and discount the primary definition and 2b.

The Oxford Dictionary avoids the issue of time altogether.

Well, fans, I've finally caught him in an outright misrepresentation:

"NIB DETAIL" ORIGINAL NIB. FINE POINT 14 KT. SOLID GOLD NIB. ORIGINAL. SEMI FLEX, 45% NIB EXPOSED. SOFT CENTER RIBBED FEEDER FOR EAZY INK FLOW, TESTED AND PROVED TO BE IN PERFECT CONDITION.

I've copied the image that proves this to be false:



See the 14KT GOLD PLATE on it?

Something like that is a useless, trivial thing compared to the "rare" and special nature of this item! This is the Benz collection not guy with the fake Rolex watches that have to be "real" and "rare".... right?

I define "antique" as anything that's 100 years or older. Anything less than that is 'vintage'.

Too bad eBay doesn't have a "blatant liar" policy. If they did, this charlatan would have been kicked off long ago. He disgusts me. If I could throw a bottle of ink on his shirt, I'd do it in a heart beat.

Less than 100 years is not ancient, by any definition, and definition 2b was much more limited in scope, basically admitting that some commercial interests apply the term inaccurately.



Merriam-Webster referenced customs laws; Oxford specifies "ancient" or "considerable age," and neither of those applies to something younger than I am.



I really can't understand why he's still allowed on eBay, unless it's simply because he brings in the auction fees so they don't care how much he lies.



Reminds me of something a dear friend said once, to an eejit of similar caliber: "Regret that you live in [distant locale], as am unable to hit you with a brick."

Why would someone go through the trouble to hand paint a pen so that it looked like one made from a marbled type of material?

There are far worse sellers than this, believe me. At least many of the items are of good quality, or so I've been told by buyers. A deceiver, yes, but there are worse. Take, for example, the following telescope that a parent might want to buy for a child who is interested in astronomy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=370082144641

This idiot taximarket has been selling junk like this for years--thousands of telescopes that just don't work right, thereby discouraging untold numbers of people. He doesn't tell any outright lies, he just sells equipment of extremely poor quality. The closest he comes to lying is saying that it has a 1400 mm focal length. Does that look like a tube about 8" wide and 55" long? It actually does have such a focal length, effectively, thanks to a cheap, low-quality, molded-plastic magnifier mounted between the main mirror and the "diagonal" reflector. Such a design could work, in theory, but not this one.

Somebody I know once bought a telescope from this guy (for much cheaper) just to examine it (now that's dedication!), and he said that the main mirror was of the wrong shape, had a poor reflective surface with specks of paint on it , and did not provide an image that could be properly focused. But the idiot is still in business with a nearly 50,000 (99.5% positive) feedback rating. Unfortunately, the latter is based entirely on buyers receiving their shiny new toy promptly, and they probably blame their own incompetence when they can't get it to work right.