The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi,
I have never used until now the forum, but I will break this well established rule for this important message. Let me introduce myself: here is Jean-Paul Agnard writing...
In May 2015 I sold to an apparent Chinese clock collector the alarm-clock cylinder of my collection: http://www3.sympatico.ca/jean-paul.agna ... mclock.htm
The selling price accepted on both side was Can. $4 500.00. He bought me and paid cash a music box and made a list of about 20 of my most prestigious machines that he said he would buy later. He was, of course interested by the alarm-clock and, as he had no more money, ask me if he could take it with him , to avoid problems in shipping and said that he would send the money on my bank account while back home in Toronto, I was in confidence, between collector, specially due to the fact that he said that he would buy more machines. I had the reflex, when he left, to take his car plate number, but too crazy to ask him his driver licence. After a few days, $1 000.00 arrived on my account and he said that he would send the rest later when he will import some of his money from China. Of course, nothing happened and I was considering the problem like an incomplete paid item, even if I was quite sure I would never see my money.
Until last Saturday, when an American collector (M. Mike) send me a message telling that a very rare machine that he thought was in my collection had been sold the 8th on eBay-Germany.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/FRENCH-GRAMOPHON ... true&rt=nc
I have, of course contacted eBay, but as the seller: Joseph Ratchford (416) 489-4435 from Toronto does not want to cooperate, my only hope is to find the buyer who, he said, is in the USA, to tell him the truth about the machine he just bought, hoping that he will ask to be reimbursed and send the machine back to Canada. If he wants to discuss with me, this can be also another solution, I am willing to give the $1 000.00 already paid to have my machine back.
eBay advise me to contact IC3.gov, the Internet Crime Complaint Center that I will do soon, but I doubt I have big chance in this direction.
If you hear anything about it, please, contact me at (418) 827-5957 or send me a message at:
[email protected]
Many thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Jean-Paul Agnard

Jean-Paul,
Having dealt with you in the past, I hope this problem will be resolved to your satisfaction.
Best regards,
Alistair.

So sad to hear you got ripped off by someone. Do you have the name of the collector in Canada or his location. Could international police help you??? Do you have any information on the buyer?? Tom B

nosideta wrote:Hi,
telling that a very rare machine that he thought was in my collection had been sold the 8th on eBay-Germany.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/FRENCH-GRAMOPHON ... true&rt=nc

Your phonograph wasn't sold on ebay Germany, otherwise I would have noticed it. In fact, the conditions of sale excluded all countries outside the US and Canada.

A dumb question perhaps , but you seem to be in Canada , the seller of the stolen machine is in Canada , isn't this a matter for the Canadian police?

Steve

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Trust it seems does no longer work when money is involved - at least not with strangers.

I sold a very unusual gramophone to a chinese collector based in Canada. I had no trouble with him and as I recall he had very positive feedback on Ebay. He asked me to label it as "music box" when sending it to China (he preferred China to Canada) as the taxes would be lower.
The next gramophone I sold (to China - but to another person) turned out to be such an ordeal that I´ve decided to never sell a gramophone to China again and surely not to have anything paid for through Paypal (as the seller one has no rights at all).

How did you get in touch with this person? I think the police as suggested in Canada sound like a good option! We should not let people get away with these things.

best of luck!!!

The selling in Germany is very odd , the seller is down as jratchfordsympatico.ca but if you search for him he has nothing on Ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/jratchfordsym ... ksid=p3692 and has no completed items http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/jratchfordsym ... 6732.m1684 searching for the item by number 182381193774 also draws a blank http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=1 ... 5573.m1684

I guess perhaps jratchfordsympatico.ca has had his ID stolen and this has been used to sell the machine on German Ebay they have privacy issued which stop some searches

Very sorry that this has happened to you Jean Paul. I've always been an admirer of your collection and your contributions to the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society over the years. As the editor of the APN from 2012-2015, I greatly appreciated receiving articles and stories from you.

With regards to the Canadian re-seller, I would imagine it would be difficult for the Canadian police to do anything about it as the most they could probably charge him with is obtaining/selling stolen property. If he purchased the item legitimately from the Chinese buyer then I'm not sure how he can be blamed.
It's unfortunate that he's not willing to help you, at least to provide you with an email address so you can
contact the US buyer.

The ebay sale in Germany is very curious and I'd love to know how you found that link Jean Paul?
A search of completed listings reveals nothing and as Starkton has indicated, the listing stipulates that the
seller will ship to Canada or the US only.

Please keep us posted on any progress that is made.

Also very sorry to hear about this. But it was certainly important to let us all know.

As Starkton has already pointed out, it was indeed not sold in Germany. Usually, you can take a link from an international eBay site and just swap the top level domain. Then you'll have it localized.

However, the fact, that it was sold in US-Dollars is a very good proof, that in fact it was sold on US eBay. It is impossible to put up an item on eBay Germany in any other currency that Euros.

At least one must have been involved in concealment of stolen goods, which - at least here - is a felony. Therefore, the police should be able to at least initiate an investigation. Please keep us informed. I really would like to know what happens about it and I am keeping my fingers crossed!

This is a very interesting discussion.

Do not get tripped up by the .de address it seems immaterial. Google translate says the red writing means "will not ship to Germany" The sale was with a "buy it now" which is perhaps why not many people saw it. And in the auction it says only Canada &USA .

So from what I see, just to counter some of the assumptions.

1.) buy it now - so probably on & off ebay very quickly.

2.) Mr Agnard contacted the seller. So think about it, what would be the innocent response to someone telling you an item you just sold was stolen. I know I would do everything to help the aggrieved party. Not say "get lost" or some approximation. Also if the sellers account had been hacked, the honest response would be otherwise, no?

3.) the stolen machine only exists once, there is no other machine like it. So who is going to dare put a machine with this provenance in their collection, as if they are not already aware that its stolen they soon will.

So worst case scenario assumptions could be:
4.) As far as I know selling and receiving stolen property can be a crime. Who wants to spend Christmas in jail.

4.) The sellers complicity in this can only be to his detriment. If I were in his shoes I would be speedily voluntarily going to the police and give a statement as to where I obtained it and help the police locate the culprit. Failure to do this I assume = complicity.

5.) Publicity....getting caught up as a target of a police enquiry casts ripples, Inland revenue could become interested in the sellers ebay activities so hopefully he has declared all sales - a gang audit from IRS Canada can be nasty I imagine.

6.) What will the neighbours think in Ardrossan Pl.,Toronto when they find out that this behavior is happening on their nice street.


Just for visual reference the ebay auction pictures