[78-L] eBay Packing Standards

[marimbamoods at comcast.net]

thank you for your input, Roger; you are spot-on in your assessment of eBay. of the six dealers you listed, i have bought from five of them, as well as having purchased from you. those experiences are the positive ones, i assure you. accurate grading, proper packing, and friendly service have been the norm from that select group, i am happy to report. 


in fact, a few of those dealers received my want-list in prior years including the Emerson in question in this case, but that particular record turned up elsewhere. that is the reality of this situation, which surely reflects the experiences of many, many others who collect 78's / cylinders. so, let's say i didn't purchase that Emerson record on eBay a few days ago. i was the only bidder, so it would have gone unsold. what happens to the record in that case? 


if this seller showed so little respect for that 78 as an irreplaceable object of history when he actually received payment for it, what can we expect it's lifespan to be in the event of a no-sale? who knows? maybe this owner would simply throw it in the trash if it produced no profit for him; or maybe he would put in a crate with his power tools in the basement and wonder where the pieces of broken shellac came from years from now when he grabs his power drill from that heap. 


when i collect and properly care for records that interest me, i am culling them from the population-at-large that may have no appreciation for these items - professional dealers aside, of course. on the one hand, i am preserving them from obliteration within the general population but the irony, of course, is that the record first has to make it to my address intact. 


merely dealing exclusively with professional dealers neither accounts for all the records that exist outside that circle, nor addresses the handling of records that do-in-fact interest me wherever they surface. simply not buying from inexperienced dealers may not bode well for the future-care of those records anymore than purchasing them does. that is why my query to this list-serve is to consider whether it is appropriate as a community to proactively attempt to influence eBay to address the matter of packing quality of fragile items. 


david harvey