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Is This Handmade Polished?


manylittle

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Yes, totally ruined. And check out his End of Day LUTZ FLOATER! 4-Paneled ONIONSKIN. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-MARBLE-1-1-8-End-of-Day-LUTZ-FLOATER-4-Paneled-ONIONSKIN-Single-Pontil-/360862387373?pt=Marbles&hash=item5405130cad

The seller described it as a marble with a finely ground pontil with facets. I though that lutz marble are later type handmades, and don't have ground faceted pontils. But well, it is a bargain, so it is worth the risk ;-)

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He or she, does not mention that the marble is polished in his description but having watched his auctions for quite some time, I would be extremely surprised if he did not know that it was polished and this was just a mistake but of course one must give the benefit of the doubt. ....maybe he meant to put it in the description but forgot. or... Maybe he subscribes to the 'buyer beware' theory and if they don't know better, then tough luck !!!

I think we all owe it to beginning collectors to be totally and scrupulously honest in our discriptions...for example, if its polished, say so....if you can't decide who made the marble, don't list two or more makers in the title....different mib, same seller....etc...you get the drift. If you have extra room in the title, don't throw out other names of marbles, that the marble isn't, just to get a better google response....such as brick and slag in the title when by the colors it is definitely a purple slag....etc. But then, I'm just a 'newbie' here and unworthy of having an opinion...oh well. lol

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MC....I did not suggest a change in the forum structure...I simply asked peoples opinions on the concept. In fact, my beginning personal opinions on the question were not pro change but I thought that it was a question that might get some participation and boy....was I right...but not in a good way. lol

I did not realize that it would be such a hot spot. My reference to being a newbie in this thread was tongue in cheek humor.

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Putting a bloated price on a marble just confuses a marble collector. (especially a newbie). I agree that if someone own's something that they can ask whatever they like for it. But when you have a fifty cent item and ask 200 times that for it then someone out there may feel that the one they have is worth a whole lot more than what they originally thought. Bottom line is it just add's more confusion to an already confused hobbie. Ronnie

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I do not think there are any ethics involved. Just a person ignorant about marbles trying to sell some.

Try to sell some? He has almost 500 marbles listed on ebay. Especillay the handmades are pretty good named, so this person know something about marbles. I won't say ignorant in this case.

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I would have to completely disagree with you Jeroen. Hardly any of the machine mades are properly Identified and most of the hand mades are names pulled from similar looking ebay sales. They know little more than titles of auctions they have seen on ebay IMO

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I'm convinced that there are some sellers who don't want things to improve on Ebay because they themselves benefit from the confusion. They can consistently mis-identify their marbles, using words in their titles that sound great but have nothing at all to do with the identity of the marble, and they can overprice their marbles. Ebay makes it so easy to relist, that it is easy to price a marble, hundreds and thousands of dollars more than it is worth, and just keep relisting it with lower prices until it sells. Eventually some newbie, with more money than caution will think he's getting a good deal at $200 because he saw the same marble listed at $900, and buy it while the seller laughs all the way to the bank because he just got $2oo for his $2 marble. It does not work all of the time, but it works enough of the time that it makes it profitable to do. And when his marbles are consistently well photographed and well presented, it works even better.

About the problems of honest mis-identifications....If every one of us, went and corrected a mis

identified marble when we saw it on ebay and directed the seller to sites like Marblealan

and here, etc perhaps, if we all did it on a consistant basis, but only if we were absolutely

sure of the identity and only if we did it in a very polite manner, indicating that the motivation

was to teach and to better the hobby, we might start making a dent in the problems on ebay.

Education is always the key to success. It would not work if it were just one or two of us, but if the majority of us were committed to it, it might just do a great deal of help.

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There is nothing wrong with having polished marbles in your collection, if that is what you like. There is something wrong with knowing that it is polished and yet not identifying it as such when they list it for sale. That is

fraud and the seller had better hope that no lawyer that lives anywhere near him, starts collecting marbles and buys one of his unlabeled polished marbles, because when he finds that he was duped, the shit will hit the fan. I am a firm believer in that what goes around comes around and if a guy consistently screws people, that eventually he will get caught at it by the right person and he will have to pay some consequences.

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Jeroen, I agree with you. I believe this lister knows his marbles better than most. It is obvious from the way he talks about marbles in his listings. It is only when he is trying to sell a non-descript marble and make it into something that it isn't that he starts word spamming. He does not have to do it with his good mibs and he is confident enough to know it.

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