Your worst ever buy?

[Grammofon1904]

Probably some bid or buys one might need to forget.. Auction nerves, really bad or dull pictures at ebay?

Anyone that want to share their story?

I'm bet I have been quite lucky over the years, well got one cheap gramo from the UK some 15 years ago - completly eaten up by bugs. The box it was shipped in, was very filled up with wood dust.

Yeah, the $200 Victor Concert soundbox, that never came my way from Bueno Aires....

[JerryVan]

O.K., I'll fess up. The Federal Model 61 radio on eBay that wasn't for real. According to Interpol, (not joking), I made a contribution to the Russian Mafia.

[Benjamin_L]

My most recent acquisition was an upright Emerson model 20, it wasn't a great experience for me. The guy lied about the condition and how much he wanted, was extremity rude and off putting when I question him about it, had the nerve to jack the price up another $100 after I mentioned I drove a hour and half. (I was scared he was going to lock me in the storage unit with it. )Once I pointed out he was using an O-ring to make the tonearm swivel and convinced him it wasn't worth as much as an external horn victor he dropped down quite a bit, but to say the least I still over paid a little, but I just didn't want to leave empty handed.

I know a lot of members have a lot worse, but as a young collector this is just mine... So far.

[drh]

Maybe two decades ago I bought an operatic cylinder from an eBay seller in South America (I forget the country now). I sent payment, but before he could post it he was murdered (!). I never saw the cylinder or my money again, but I'd say he got the worse end of the bargain.

[Grammofon1904]

Maybe two decades ago I bought an operatic cylinder from an eBay seller in South America (I forget the country now). I sent payment, but before he could post it he was murdered (!). I never saw the cylinder or my money again, but I'd say he got the worse end of the bargain.

Yes, that was Hernan from Buenos Aires. This was back in 2003, I guess. I also bought a soundbox from him. "I will send it soon, I will send it soon,I will send it soon..." Then it became quiet. Took some time before I figured out what happend.

[colmike1]

About 35 years ago, I was working at an antique mall. There was a little fellow who would come in, kind of looked like a 1930s hobo, who said he also collected antique phonographs. He said he would sell me a victrola console for $20. I thought how can I pass this deal up. I got over to his apartment, which was on a second floor, and saw the machine. Didn't look too bad so I gave him the $20. Then I tried moving it. For some reason it weighed a bloody ton. I finally got it down the stairs and home. I went to open the record storage doors and I noticed that they were nailed shut with a very long spike. I finally got it open to find a chunk of railroad tie inside where the record storage should be. For what purpose, I do not know. Needless to say, I took the motor and tonearm and any other savable parts off of it and scrapped the cabinet. A whole lot of work for very little return.

[AmberolaAndy]

I already said enough about the incident with my VV 2-55 other than I’ll never buy a machine packed and shipped by FedEx again! ... Knowing what I know now I consider the first few machines that I bought from 2008-2010 when I was starting out to be my worst buys. A couple of off brand portables and a Handyman tabletop.

[drh]

Maybe two decades ago I bought an operatic cylinder from an eBay seller in South America (I forget the country now). I sent payment, but before he could post it he was murdered (!). I never saw the cylinder or my money again, but I'd say he got the worse end of the bargain.

Yes, that was Hernan from Buenos Aires. This was back in 2003, I guess. I also bought a soundbox from him. "I will send it soon, I will send it soon,I will send it soon..." Then it became quiet. Took some time before I figured out what happened.

That's the one, yes. Hernan, that was the name. This thread is dragging up a very old memory there; I hadn't thought about the incident in years and years. I think I had some brief, unproductive correspondence with a relative of the seller, maybe wife or sister, who expressed uncertainty about how to determine who should get what. If I remember correctly, at one point I heard one of the "big names" in the collecting world--Kurt Nauck, maybe?--was trying to sort the matter out and arrange for purchases to get to their associated buyers, but if so in my case at least nothing ever came of it.

[Curt A]

Years ago - 10-15 maybe, I was into collecting needle tins big time. I wasn't having much luck finding unusual ones in the US, so I decided to try German eBay. I made a number of successful purchases with zero problems, so when I found a seller in Hamburg who had a number of unusual tins in successive auctions, I decided to buy the next lot that came up. This lot of maybe twenty tins had Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse and some other very rare graphic design tins. The price seemed reasonable to start and kept climbing, so I made the decision to buy them no matter what. After all, I had watched several others of his auctions and he received good feedback...

Unfortunately, I won them at a price higher than I had initially set, since some other bidder kept tapping me up (NEVER set a proxy bid - bid at the last second). Anyway, I was happy to be finally getting them and rationalized the price... When I received them several weeks later, I was angry that the seller just mailed them in a big envelope - loose - no box or bubble wrap. They miraculously survived and I was elated UNTIL I looked at them closely.

The rare ones were generic British tins with stickers attached to appear real - almost all of them fake, just a few that were more common were real... I looked back at the seller's history (that was when you could identify the previous individual buyers and bidders) and found out that all of his previous auctions were won by somebody with 15,000 wins, but zero feedback as a buyer... BIG RED FLAGS...

At the time, I wasn't aware that if you paid by PayPal and got taken, they would refund your purchase... So, to be fair (I don't know why I decided to be "fair" under the circumstances) I looked at all of the stuff he sent and determined that a few things were legitimate, so told PayPal to refund the major portion of my payment and leave him with small part of it. He emailed me and demanded that I make up the rest of the payment, which I obviously didn't do.

I guess being "fair" didn't count in his world... but I learned a valuable lesson about bidding on eBay...

[AZ*]

My worst ever buy was probably a Model VV-210 small flat-top Victrola. I bought it because of its perceived historical spot in the evolution of Victrolas: "the low-priced, flat top console that helped to revive stagnant Victrola sales in the early 1920's" according to Paul Edie's Victor Victrola website.

While the machine was evidently popular in its day, I came to despise it and relegated it to the garage. After moving it from house to house 5 or 6 times over 30 years, I finally decided last year to get rid of it. The Salvation Army hauled it away. Maybe some newbie collector ended up with it at a bargain price.