Are Lilliputians allowed to sell on ebay?

[jaybp30]

Sorry if this has been posted:


Is this a tiny person with a mandolin or a mandocello?

[mrmando]

What are they selling, a lock of hair from Gulliver?

[Jess L.]

Is this a tiny person with a mandolin or a mandocello?

They Photoshopped the mandolin into the pic. They got the size wrong (more on that below a ways), and the pic has a number of other issues as well, including mismatched lighting angles and sharpness levels.

Below is a side-by-side comparison showing the mandolin pic vs a stock photography Shutterstock pic with guitar instead of mandolin (FAIR USE of blurry low-res thumbnail, also thanks to Google Image Search for quickly turning up the original) - click the pic 2 or 3 times to make it big enough to see:



(An aside, did anyone actually build guitars with weird-shaped angled fretboards, on the bass side just above the soundhole, as shown in the left-hand pic above?)

Anyway, my guess is that the mandolin ended up too big so that they wouldn't have to bother with moving the guy's fretting hand - you'll note that he's already playing a barre chord (at least it looks that way to me) on the mandolin's nut. And the picking hand is 'picking' almost on top of the bridge, even with the oversized mandolin. If the mandolin had been sized to more accurate/smaller proportions, the guy's hand/arm position would have needed some Photoshop adjustment, otherwise he would have ended up playing that chord between the nut and the tuners instead of on top of the nut. But even if the mandolin had been sized correctly, that still wouldn't have addressed the mismatched lighting angles etc which make the photo look suspicious right off the bat. And comparing the guitar vs mandolin photo, one can see other issues in the mandolin pic - such as cloned plaid shirt fills that don't actually align the plaid correctly (where the guitar's upper bout had been), and more sloppy cloning on the fence where the guitar peg-head had been (note the tell-tale repetitive marks from not paying enough attention to moving the clone origin point so as to not repeat the same part too many times). Some of the other photos look odd/doctored as well.

This is curious too - quote from the seller's webpage:

"Specifications:
Condition: 100% Brand New
Panel Material: Spruce
Side Panels Material: Maple
Cardboard Material: Rosewood"

Hmm. Presumably a translation issue? Can't imagine the corrugated cardboard shipping box being made of rosewood fibers, but who knows.

[MikeEdgerton]

If they were selling the guitar I'd buy that.

[Ted Eschliman]

Excuse the literary humor, but looks to me more like the work of Jonathan Swifts' "Big-Endians."

[EdHanrahan]

Good friend of mine was a graphic artist, way back when for Time with lots of re-touched Princess Diana, and later for Topps, the baseball card folks (plus football and other sports). A major issue there was getting THIS year's uniform on the traded guys' action photos from LAST year. She was great at finding all the mistakes (only some of them hers), like sliding into base with three arms!

[Simon DS]

If they were selling the guitar I'd buy that.

I think he’d sell you the guitar no problem. If you look at his face on the guitar photo and then the mandolin, it looks like he’s just as happy keeping the mandolin.
Why... if this guy was playing a banjo he’d be happy too.

Actually I might buy that mandolin myself, just for the soft case, if I go camping I can use it as a sleeping bag.

[MikeEdgerton]

If you really wanted the case you could have picked it up for a fraction of the cost. Check out this thread. I bought one of these and it came with the bag.

[Simon DS]

Courageous... me, I’d never buy a mandolin without looking at it for at least a couple of seconds.

[jaycat]

Whatever it is, that guy is having way too much fun. I guess he is "feeling good and excellent while holding it."

[Jess L.]

Whatever it is, that guy is having way too much fun. I guess he is "feeling good and excellent while holding it."

Guy in pic is happy 'cuz he upgraded the mandolin to 8 strings - whereas the ad offers only a one-string mandolin. Quote from ad:

Package List:
1 * Mandolin
1 * Storage Bag
1 * Audio Source Cable
1 * Cleaning Cloth
1 * Tuner
1 * String
2 * Pick

But that's not so bad, because you get 2 picks, yay!

(yeah yeah I know I probably shouldn't be finding humor in language/translation issues, but a literal reading is a bit comical.)

[MikeZito]

Good friend of mine was a graphic artist, . . . for Topps, the baseball card folks (plus football and other sports). A major issue there was getting THIS year's uniform on the traded guys' action photos from LAST year.

I very distinctly remember some very laughable airbrush jobs on more than a few cards back in the 70's. It seems like in recent years it doesn't matter any more - I see plenty of cards nowadays with one team name on the card, and a completely different uniform in the picture. I'm not sure which is worse - mis-matched uniforms, or bad airbrush/Photoshop jobs.


. . . and, back to the subject at hand - I almost laughed out loud when I saw that picture! Thanks for sharing.

[Russ Donahue]

I am surprised none of you noticed the significant savings if you buy in bulk!

[Jess L.]

I am surprised none of you noticed the significant savings if you buy in bulk!

Oh! Good call. I hadn't noticed that!

[AndyV]

Okay, I stopped myself from posting about this, but now the door's open, and ther are suddenly a few more tiny people with mando listings. Catchy name for this one; 24 Fred Acoustic. https://www.ebay.com/itm/F-Model-8-S.../253345471046?

[your_diamond]

The guy can't count. There are 30 Fred's, but it's new so at least there will be no Fredware.