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buyers in asia
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 2:19 pm
by brianu
I've been selling a number of machines on ebay, and regarding a couple larger ones, including a victor credenza, I keep getting inquiries from buyers/bidders in taiwan and china asking about shipping costs and for more information about the machines (not condition, but general historical and mechanical type information not specific to the actual machines I'm selling, information of the sort found in the books) and their value... yes, buyer asking seller about the value. the messages just come off as weird. the listings are pretty detailed and all are marked for pick-up only. even after I tell reply the same, that they're for pick-up only, some of these bidders/buyers continue pushing, talking about crating costs, whether I could look into and transport it to a shipping company, or to their specific shipper... with payment always coming through paypal, even when I, under such circumstances (considering all the fraud), require cash. it all just reminded me of some of the scams discussed here before where the bidder wins an auction, paypals the payment, receives the item, then complains to ebay that it was never received before ebay/paypal gives them a refund (leaving them with both the refund and the machine, and the seller with nothing).
has anyone else encountered anything like this???
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 2:55 pm
by Valecnik
Brianu,
I think you might just be on the receiving end of the rise of the Asian middle & upper class, especially Chinese who would never have dreamed of owning such a thing even a few years back. Imagine having a good bit of money, books on the topic virtually not availabe, willing to pay but with limited command of English.
If I was a scammer, I don't think scamming large phonos would be my fraud of choice. Nevertheless, you do need to be cautious and I guess there's always higher risk (and a lot more effort) in such a transaction versus selling to someone closer to home...
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:21 pm
by brianu
that's the thing, I too never previously would have associated a scam with such machines, that are priced around a thousand or less, in some cases much below. but I'm thinking of, for example, steve (in the UK) who had the problems with CA ebay buyer - previously discussed on this forum - who bought I think a cameraphone from him, then claimed no receipt and got a refund through ebay/paypal while steve got stuck with a bill for that refund while he was still out the machine.
you could be right about the improving economy over there leading to the appearance of more chinese bidders/buyers, I thought about that myself and was hoping with this post to determine whether anyone here may have had any successful such dealings.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:08 pm
by gramophone78
Brian,
Although I don't sell very often on Ebay. I think I can help somewhat regarding this topic. Last year I was selling rare a fan. A lady (living in the US) emailed me that she had a Uncle in Taiwan that wanted the fan. She wanted me to ship to Taiwan. Even though my listing was Canada/ USA only. I told her that she could bid and I would only send to her (St.Louis). She kept pushing to send to Taiwan and asking for a price.
I decided to check the cost to ship such a heavy item to Taiwan. There are two options.....air or sea.
Air was like 600.00 and sea was 250.00.
I had put a very high reserve on the fan and at the end of the day, she bid one bid and passed the reserve. Note: the next highest bid was hundreds lower!!!!.
Since she bid and won, I gave her the two prices to Taiwan and told her I would try and help save them money by shipping to Taiwan.
She paid for the fan and the "air" price via PayPal.
Also, when I went to mail the two boxes....it turned out the post made a mistake regarding the insurance cost and it was about 50.00 more. I sent them the fan anyway and told the lady about the extra (not expecting to get it) and the 50.00 was sent ASAP no questions asked.
The only thing that I found "different" was they left no feedback. So, I guess it was good but they never said either way......????. All and all a great experience.
I hope this helps Brian.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:17 pm
by HisMastersVoice
Phonographs and accessories, especially Victor, are pretty desirable over there. The last Orthophonic reproducer I sold on eBay went to Taiwan, and it sold for well over what I thought I'd get from a US buyer. Not the same as an entire machine, I realize, but I had no problems with the transaction.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:06 am
by wjw
At the January Orlando show was a very nice couple from Taiwan cruising the Credenzas. I had an electric 8-30 there but it was sold and I referred them to Ron Haring who knows all about shipping these beasts overseas. I did learn from them that Taiwan has 60 Hz power.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:48 am
by antique1973
I would ship to Asia as long as I can pull the money out of Paypal before shipping it off. All the same it would cause headaches if they try a chargeback scam.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:56 am
by saxymojo
Hi
I would ship worldwide, as long as the buyer is willing to pay for insurance. I have found it difficult at times to get US sellers to ship to Australia, it is no more trouble than shipping within the USA.
I once bought a #3 G&T (Berliner) from a US seller who flatly refused to post world wide, I convinced him to allow me to bid on the condition that I would have it sent to a US address. Well I won the auction for a very low amount, had the seller listed this superb machine world wide he would have got at least 2K more, Aussies and Brits prefer G&T to Victor. With the saving I had the machine sent to Yellow stone national park accommodation and had a holiday, finishing up in Cancun. I took the machine home as hand luggage, it was interesting going through the scanners, got a lot of questions.
Regards Marcel
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:59 am
by Andersun
There is a specific exporter who bids for persons in Asia on Ebay and act as a middle man and consolidate items bought by various persons and then ships them to the various countries. The Ebay name is flight2nyc. They give you strict instructions for labeling and packing the item so it would get to Asia in one piece and to the correct buyer. I sent a canvas banner so it was pretty easy. I don't know if I would do the same with a phonograph.
Re: buyers in asia
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 11:24 am
by brianu
hmm. he wasn't one of the bidders who contacted me. one bidder that did contact me though - as has often been the case - had his feedback hidden. when I asked him about it, he said it was all positive but that he didn't want it revealed because then his own buyers (apparently he was just reselling) would know what he paid for the stuff.
coincidentally enough, there's an article on slate today about the huge population of nouveau riche in china and their insatiable drive to spend more and more money for status symbols of that newly acquired wealth.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cult ... boom_.html
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"The delirium that has possessed collectors of Chinese antiques is largely a reflection of new wealth. During the repressive Mao era of the mid-20th century, all but the most didactic art was denigrated, collecting was outlawed, and learning about the imperial past was illegal. Over the first half-century of Communist rule, the antiquities market was pretty much limited to a small pool of buyers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.
Around 2005, stateside auction houses began to see an increase in mainland buyers who had been absent due to limitations on travel and restrictions on the outflows of money. In the years since, access has widened and that small pool of Southeast Asian buyers has been engulfed by a vast ocean of freshly minted Chinese collectors and their freshly minted cash. According to the Boston Consulting Group, more than 1 million Chinese are now worth more than $1 million. And according to the latest Hurun Rich List, China’s version of the Forbes 400, more than half of the mainland’s 95 billionaires reached that plateau over the last few years.
Many got rich quick on the back of their country's huge export trade and construction boom. The new elite is eager to build collections quickly, even at a premium. Impatience helps account for the soaring prices. “Too many people are chasing too few goods,” says Lark Mason, an expert in Asian art who appears frequently on PBS’ Antiques Roadshow. “During the 1980s, ’90s, and into the new century, there was ample Chinese material available because there were not enough buyers to drive the prices up and create scarcity. Today, vastly more people are capable of and interested in buying, but there’s not enough material on the market to satisfy them.”
_________
even though I originally was asking about phonograph sales, that article talks more about the buying primarily of chinese antiquities, a market in which such frenzied buying has recently caused a bubble of its own. this raised another question for me that I've noticed really divided opinion on in the past. a dealer from whom I bought one of my less common machines in the past at the time had a number of antique phonographs from russia, not those communist era russian portables that show up all the time, but external horn machines including ones of the russian victor/hmv line. he told me he had to use family connections to get them out of the country because it was mostly illegal to export the country's antiquities, which included such phonographs. I've dealt with some collectors and dealers as well who do just the opposite, refuse to send, say, american machines and components abroad to foreign buyers for fear of losing still more of a growing amount of the country's historical and cultural heritage to international buyers just to make a few bucks (I remember not too long ago japanese collectors buying up, for one, brass orthophonic reproducers whenever they became available, pushing prices beyond what most domestic buyers could afford).