The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Recenty, I got aware of several cylinder phonograph auctions on eBay offered by the same person, who was obviously selling a whole collection of unrestored examples. I was able to buy this one:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Edison-Early-Ho ... 3092854588

As tracking still does not indicate a shipment one month later (and the vendor did mot react on many polite messages) I initiated eBay procedures - and, this evening, discovered he had received four new negative feedbacks almost at once. Due to insufficient packaging, he has destroyed two beautiful Columbia machines, one late Edison Standard E and an Edison Home so far. As this is less than half of the machines he offered, more may follow. Maybe its better if I will not receive his parcel, avoiding the shock...

Did you provide packing instructions? Jerry B.

After 1 month, you REALLY need to file a buyer protection claim with eBay! Actually, I think you may have a 30 day window to do so, so I really hope you don't mean 1 month exactly.

Jerry B. wrote:Did you provide packing instructions? Jerry B.

Unfortunately, I have found this usually does little good.

Accursius wrote:Recenty, I got aware of several cylinder phonograph auctions on eBay offered by the same person, who was obviously selling a whole collection of unrestored examples. I was able to buy this one:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Edison-Early-Ho ... 3092854588

As tracking still does not indicate a shipment one month later (and the vendor did mot react on many polite messages) I initiated eBay procedures - and, this evening, discovered he had received four new negative feedbacks almost at once. Due to insufficient packaging, he has destroyed two beautiful Columbia machines, one late Edison Standard E and an Edison Home so far. As this is less than half of the machines he offered, more may follow. Maybe its better if I will not receive his parcel, avoiding the shock...

I was the buyer of the Standard E and the Home B. The Standard was wrapped in an old pair of pants! A truly miserable ebay experience. Still waiting for the paypal refund.

WOW but nothing new .... i have sold and bought for over 20 years and nothing surprises me anymore....i asked the shipper from floida a few years back to use paper to ship on a very nice machine...so they shipped using paper...the morning paper on the bottom and night paper on top...flat and not crushed up...wtf...what a cluster ????.....what is best about ebay now is just file a claim and you will get your monies back....ebay has some issues but taking care of customers like you is not one of them.... mark and d'arcy

Unfortunately, I have found this usually does little good.

That may be true but at least you've done your best to take care of the things we treasure. Jerry B.

That's really a shame. I do wonder about the seller, though. The spelling and grammatical errors in almost every one of those listings borders on bizarre, particularly "It is a magazine." It is amazing?

I ordered two gallons of round up on Amazon prime at $ 102.. per gallon. I received them this morning and they were thrown over my fence because of the dogs. No door bell ring not put on the container by the fence for parcels and my dog also had ball. They told me to take it to Kohls to be shipped back and I told them there was a problem. Anyway they are sending me two more. I had a mess bringing that stuff to my back yard. It is sticky stuff. It shows that almost all companies are having problems in there delivery. I have had at least five phonographs and two boxes of records destroyed upon the delivery. Tom

The strange thing is, when I click that link it takes me to the German ebay, but it says the items are located in New York!? Perhaps the seller is German and doesn't speak English very well. I unfortunately have purchased a machine from ebay and provided clear packing instructions, but the machine arrived damaged anyway. It was packed with several pages out of various Vietnamese magazines, so I must assume the sellers didn't understand my instructions

Stephen