Scam seller !!

[gunto]

Heres what I saw on ebay this morning :
Fraud seller!!!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Original auction:
I have watched a very nice japanese naval parade sword that ended a day ago. It went for more than expectedmuch more . Cant see whats different with this .The guilding looks great ,but???maybe that was the reason?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...K%3AMEWAX%3AIT

So watch out

[Papa Nambu]

Never seen parade swords sell for that much

[kaigunair]

nice catch with the scammer. another Hong Kong / China based scam.

I agree, the prices for non-nihonto machine made blades/sabers have been crazy lately. But the original auction was for what looks like a near mint example of a sabre, yes a machine made blade, but to each his own.

Seems like there are more people collecting the jpn ww2 fittings and variations, rather than for the nihonto aspect. Makes sense in a funny way - german daggers and firearms can get pretty pricey, and they are all "machine made". I guess this is the trend of ww2 japanese sabers. Maybe they were undervalued because they were pooh pooh'd by nihonto collectors which had something to compare them too unlike german blades. But when seen in the light of german presentation blades, jpn sabers/daggers do look alot scarcer and cheaper. And having more books on the subject only makes for more informed collectors, who need to have *all* the variations!

[gunto]

I have reported the seller to ebay ,but I dont think they care. The auction is still running and the seller has raised the start price from 0.99 too 2000 us$.

[kaigunair]

I have reported the seller to ebay ,but I dont think they care. The auction is still running and the seller has raised the start price from 0.99 too 2000 us$.

yeah, the people who run ebay probably aren't the type of collectors like us who use ebay. If they were, they would realize the value of the expertise of its users who are collectors, and find a better way of capturing that in each listing. It would improve both the quality of ebay listings, and their company. How many collectors are turned off by the amount of "junk" on ebay, let alone the newbies who later find out they've been scammed.

Goes to show what sort of disconnect there is between the management and reality...but I'm sure the head honcho there in charge of this sort of stuff must get paid big bucks to determine fee structures and auction layouts, all without actually improving the auction experience. That person may be better at marketing themselves than enhancing ebay....