Five'll Get You Tenor

[Willie Poole]

Some years ago I bought a Martin guitar and the seller told me he didn`t have any proof but he was told that Elvis once owned it, I never believed it but I played it for about 10-12 years and then posted an ad to sell it, I never mentioned the Elvis rumor but I did post the serial number and in one day after the ad hit the web site I got a call from a fellow in up state NY and he drove all the way down here to Md and bought the guitar...After the sale I got to thinking if he knew if that guitar really did belong to Elvis just by the serial number, I never did ask him and have lost contact with him...I got what I asked for the instrument so I was happy and I suppose he was also....

Buying used instruments a person never knows the true history of them like who owned them before etc....

Willie

[mrmando]

Well, three days ago I inhaled an oxygen molecule that once briefly occupied the lungs of Rene Descartes. So anything is indeed possible.

Sometimes you DO know, with some amount of certitude, who previously owned an instrument, and sometimes you don't. In the present case, however, all we have is a vague claim about provenance that the seller flat-out refuses to substantiate. That's about as honorable as claiming that you have the winning Mega Millions ticket stashed in a McDonald's, to cite a recent example from Willie's home state.

[barney 59]

Sometimes instruments belonged to a musician(famous or otherwise) and it doesn't mean a thing. A musician with MAS or GAS is just like anyone else with the same disease. He saw it, he bought it and then maybe it ended up stashed in a closet with a stack of other instruments he happened to own. Instruments that are clearly identifiable with a musician count (maybe) Django's Selmer would be cool to have around or "Blackie", Waylon's Tele, Jethro's A5 --there's a pretty long list but if you don't have them performing or recording or at the very,very least a photo of the musician with the instrument-- so what!?
In any case besides the guy having an unrealistic idea as to the instruments value,---lots of people do that,--- he seems to be kind of a jerk to boot. I guess if you have the time you could have some fun with him but best maybe just to forget about it.

[Seonachan]

Does Ron Paul have a musical background? Rand?

I'm trying to think of a famous musician who would willingly carve his name into the soundboard. Actually when you look at it closely, it's hard to tell the intentional carvings from the cracks. It could say Raul or Faul or Faui. At in the middle of the lower bought it looks like the initials "R.L." are carved in as well. Idaho congressman Raul Labrador?

[mrmando]

Well, of course "Paul" and "R.L." don't necessarily correspond to the name of the famous former owner ... the guitar could've been customized before he or she got hold of it.

I'm drawing a complete blank as to who the famous musician could be, unless perhaps it's Neil LeVang, former Lawrence Welk guitarist, who passed away in Santa Clarita a couple of years back and whose collection was sold off an instrument or two at a time. Or, I dunno, maybe it was Whitney Houston. Famous musicians die in Southern California with alarming regularity.

[MixieArmadillo]

Seller labeled me a "Muslim" for raising some of these issues. I'm not even going to try to turn that into a joke. What a charming fellow.

What the junk?

[barney 59]

R L ? so Bob Givens owned that? I looked at it and thought that it looked like "Raul". I can't think of a famous "Raul L".

[mrmando]

R L could be Burnside.

It would be cool to have a tenor guitar that used to belong to R L Burnside. But not $4,700 cool. I doubt R L Burnside ever spent $4,700 on a guitar in his life.

Has anybody else tried making contact with this seller, and used a tactic other than calling him out for general cluelessness?

[Ben Milne]

Yeh, it really seems he doesn't like "cyber tyre kickers". I asked him about what made his instrument custom made, and he directed me to contact Martin customer service. I suggested he should just answer my question about the claim he was making, but apparently he did answer it, and I was to do my own due diligence by asking the people that made it.

[jim simpson]

He has changed the opening bid to $100.00, no bids yet.

[journeybear]

Wow! I don't know which surprised me more, that he dropped it that much, or that he dropped it at all. It's definitely going to move now. Yep - one bid already. Wonder what the reserve is. $4700?

[John McCoy]

Yeh, it really seems he doesn't like "cyber tyre kickers". I asked him about what made his instrument custom made, and he directed me to contact Martin customer service. I suggested he should just answer my question about the claim he was making, but apparently he did answer it, and I was to do my own due diligence by asking the people that made it.

From the CFMartin website 4/12/2012:

"Custom Guitars - Custom built Martin instruments may not be ordered directly from our Custom Shop. We ask that you please contact your authorized Martin dealer to get a quote on a custom built Martin. An authorized Martin dealer can assist you with appointment, pricing and delivery requests."

AND...

"Used guitar inquiries - C.F. Martin's position is not an intermediary between a purchaser and seller to validate or discredit a seller's or purchaser's claim about an instrument. We suggest you contact an independent consultant to verify any used Martin product for sale."

So, the question is: Does he think he's smarter than everybody else, or does he think that everybody else is stupider than he is?

== John ==

[journeybear]

Stupid is as stupid does. So I'm gonna go j-u-s-t a little out on a limb and say he's stupid. A bit mean, too.

Meanwhile, it's getting close to $1000. I don't think it's going to meet the reserve, though.

[mrmando]

Dude has +1901/99.5% feedback, mostly on buying and selling automotive products. He knows how to use eBay. I don't think he's stupid across the board, but his knowledge has some deficits. He doesn't know what harassment is; thinks religious terms are just names to call people he doesn't like; and has outsized expectations of the El Monte PD. And he doesn't realize that guitars are more like cars than he thinks. If he were selling a 1930 Studebaker with a cracked engine block, rotten tires and a rusted-out body on which some kid had scratched his initials, he wouldn't try to make a virtue out of its being in "original conditions."

I see a couple of suspicious-looking potential cracks in the top of this guitar, plus a couple of somewhat less suspicious ones on the back, so contrary to the seller's opinion, the fact that it hasn't had any repairs is not necessarily a point in its favor.

Anyone who bids over $1200 on this would have to be insane, methinks. But then there are a lot of crazy people in this world.

[mrmando]

Bidding at $910 now. Madness. Maybe the people bidding have never tried to communicate with the seller.

Each time I circled back to this ad, the description seemed to read a little differently. Well, my eyes weren't deceiving me. Turns out the seller has changed the ad six times, including five changes to the description ... none of which have managed to correct any of his errors or add any useful information:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330715117492

[John McCoy]

...Turns out the seller has changed the ad six times, including five changes to the description ....

Now I'm wondering, just out of curiosity. Say, hypothetically: I see an item I like a lot based on the description, the auction has a few days to run yet, and I don't want to be checking eBay constantly, so I--knowing how their "leap-frog" bidding system works--put in a really high bid that eventually wins. But by then the seller has changed the description in a way that makes the item unattractive to me. Am I stuck with it, or do I have some recourse? My guess is that I'm stuck, because eBay gets the listing fee from the seller. Does anybody know for sure? I know there are potentially very potent legal remedies, but they involve expensive lawyers and probably litigating in the seller' state (country). I'm wondering where eBay would come down on this type of situation.

I'm making a mental note to screen shot and email to myself (for the email server's time/date stamp) anything I bid on in the future.

== John ==

[Seonachan]

Once you bid, the seller can't change the description - only add info in a separate section. But in this case, the reserve hasn't been met, so it's as if it has no bids, and the seller can continue to alter the description at will.

Notice the last change made on this one:

Changed All returns accepted from Returns Accepted to ReturnsNotAccepted

[mrmando]

If the reserve has been met, aren't bidders notified when the seller adds something to the listing?

[Seonachan]

If the reserve has been met, aren't bidders notified when the seller adds something to the listing?

I don't think so. It would be up to the seller to notify the bidder(s) of the addition. But if the addition contradicts something in the original listing, I imagine that would be a policy violation and the high bidder would have no obligation to go through with the sale.

[journeybear]

I'm not sure exactly what a seller's obligation is to live up to everything he says in his description. I would think he should, but perhaps not? My most recent purchase included, in the description, $6 shipping anywhere in the 48 states. Come time to pay, the shipping charges were $19. I asked the seller a couple of times to explain the discrepancy, hoping he would correct this, but he didn't. So this added 10% to my overall purchase. Not a deal breaker, and I thought I might cause him to call the whole thing off if I pressed my case. I might have put more effort into this if it were something I really cared about, but it is just a piece of ptooey wall hanging. I'll see what happens when it arrives and is as unplayable as I believe, despite him saying his son checked it out and it plays fine. I don't know if this qualifies as intent to deceive, as the tenor seller seems to be, but it doesn't completely sit well. But I did think to do exactly what John McCoy has suggested, and mailed a screen shot to myself. They say great minds think alike, but I'm not sure exactly how that pertains ... in my case, anyway.

[mrmando]

I don't think so. It would be up to the seller to notify the bidder(s) of the addition.

I'm pretty sure bidders get an automatic email notification when a description changes. I seem to recall this happening.

I almost never bid until the last second these days, so it's been a while since I would have received such a notification.

In the case of this tenor, we know the description is full of falsehoods ... but anybody who tries to return it is going to get an earful from the seller.

[journeybear]

Seems to have stalled at $910. Perhaps bidders have been reading the not-so-fine print. There may be a last-minute flurry of activity near closing time tonight, but I seriously doubt the reserve will be met. I expect that is still close to the original asking price. Perhaps this is all just the seller's way of testing the waters, seeing what the market will bear for this.

[jim simpson]

Winning bid, $3,000.00. It looks like the first bidder was the last.

[journeybear]

Wow! There is some weird juju at play there. The winning bidder seems obsessed with the nimber 62 - his bids kept ending with $62.62 - and in the end he outbid himself by over $1300! Hs last bid came in just eight seconds before closing, even after the others had dropped out. Must have really wanted it.

[mrmando]

I am absolutely gobsmacked. Obviously the way to sell instruments on eBay is to start with a good instrument in poor condition, price it way too high, make claims about it that are either unsubstantiated or downright false, be rude to people who ask you questions, make unreasonable demands and behave like a jerk in general. I've been doing it all wrong.