Estonian SS Officer collar tab set

[NickG]

I wont't spend any more words on this matter...
(just a drawing)

[TomH]

Nick this does you no credit at all. You do not know what personal circumstances have caused a well-liked collector who has diligently built up his collection to suddenly liquidate it all.

I would suggest you use your imagination to reflect what scenarios might cause you to suddenly dispose of your treasured collection. I have - and none of those scenarios are pretty.

A little empathy here wouldn't go amiss.

Tom

[DaveJ]

To get to the original post. This happens every day. When I was a young collector I kept everything and sold nothing, but there comes a point when you have to sell.
Sellers remorse...damn, I should have kept that for my collection.....or more like damn....I could have sold it for more.
When it is sold, the new owner can do what he wants, unless, the agreement to get it back is in the deal, and the seller is MAN enough to follow through and offer it back to the original owner.
All this has been said here, and I have seen a lot of stuff posted by the originator to see if it is real or not, and then it is "our chance to get some nice ones".
my 2 cents. Yes this hobby has become a business for most collectors.
Dave

[codytrcollector]

Nick this does you no credit at all. You do not know what personal circumstances have caused a well-liked collector who has diligently built up his collection to suddenly liquidate it all.

I would suggest you use your imagination to reflect what scenarios might cause you to suddenly dispose of your treasured collection. I have - and none of those scenarios are pretty.

A little empathy here wouldn't go amiss.

Tom

[C. Betz]

Has It Come To This?

"I wont't spend any more words on this matter...
(just a drawing) "

I see the intellectual content of this thread has now reached the kindergarten/bathroom wall level.

Charles Betz

[SiPo]

Quite a sad thread. Personally, don't think it should have been started and I certainly hope it isn't allowed to continue.

[Martyn1]

If there was a gentlemen's agreement to offer the tab back to William if the tab was ever sold and this was overlooked....then there would be a reason to complain. If not, then the new owner has the right to do whatever he likes. This has somehow escalated to a moral/ethics issue "only" because it was a rare item. If the same set of circumstances existed and the item was a common SS armband, for example, no one would care whatsoever. There was no wrong-doing here based on that and I am sure William was well compensated for the tab when he relinquished ownership. Case closed IMO.

Absolutely 100% correct the new owner can do exactly what he likes with his item....unless there was a prior agreement

[D Davies]

I would like to thank everyone who has posted in support of me.Yes i'm selling up due to financial and personal reason.
I will still be a member here and on war relics forum due to the fact i have many friends i have made here.And with my limited knowledge i would still like to be of help to anyone who needs it.
Cheers
Dave.

[NickG]

Sorry to hear about that situation Dave and sorry about the comments which were much too harsh... Maybe a moderator can clean this up?

Because there can be so much money and greed involved with this hobby it can get messy...misconstrued easily....with money often being the root of the evil and destroying friendships, creating aggravation....we all know...

Chasing the pinnacle of your collection and shortly thereafter unloading it just looked very suspicious and William was genuinely very upset, so upset he put the comments in this otherwise spectacular thread as the tab set is an amazing find! I thought I would support him...he thanked me in a PM...
but I really can't blame you for chasing it down!

Even though you did not have to explain yourself, you did so and by doing so I now understand the situation and the reason and I wish you the best of luck. Please accept my apologies. Your conduct remains impeccable. You are a valued member and I hope to see you around regardless of the circumstances, leaving the hobby or notYou are and will remain a valued asset to this forum! NickG

[Martyn1]

Sorry to hear about that situation Dave and sorry about the comments which were much too harsh... Maybe a moderator can clean this up?

Because there can be so much money and greed involved with this hobby it can get messy...misconstrued easily....with money often being the root of the evil and destroying friendships, creating aggravation....we all know...

Chasing the pinnacle of your collection and shortly thereafter unloading it just looked very suspicious and William was genuinely very upset, so upset he put the comments in this otherwise spectacular thread as the tab set is an amazing find! I thought I would support him...he thanked me in a PM...
but I really can't blame you for chasing it down!

Even though you did not have to explain yourself, you did so and by doing so I now understand the situation and the reason and I wish you the best of luck. Please accept my apologies. Your conduct remains impeccable. You are a valued member and I hope to see you around regardless of the circumstances, leaving the hobby or notYou are and will remain a valued asset to this forum! NickG

Well I think we all owe Nick a 'nod' for this post as we all know it can very difficult to say maybe I was wrong so this can't have been easy .... So although I don't know you Nick you get my 'Nod'

[sam1chlt]

Dave,
Please post your items on estand. I would be happy to help as well as others and you would at least know where your pieces were if you decided to get back into it again.

[militaria.no]

Well I think we all owe Nick a 'nod' for this post as we all know it can very difficult to say maybe I was wrong so this can't have been easy .... So although I don't know you Nick you get my 'Nod'

By the way: A few years ago this ribbon bar was listed on eBay - US sale only. I sent a pm to Nick and asked if he could help me. Nick placed a bid, won the auction, went to the post office and sent the bar to me in Norway. A small item but it makes a big difference to my display. This is what I call A Gentleman’s help

[codytrcollector]

Well I think we all owe Nick a 'nod' for this post as we all know it can very difficult to say maybe I was wrong so this can't have been easy .... So although I don't know you Nick you get my 'Nod'

Agreed, well done Nick.

[RD Rygaard]

I've read this thread with some amusement but mainly disdain. I wanted to stay out of it but I feel it's time for "cooler head's" to prevail. Both member's are known to this forum,Dave being a long time member who has helped many with his knowledge of SS/3rd Reich insignia and William, a newer member usually asking for opinions on items he's purchased before he moves them on. Both seem decent enough & neither has broken forum protocol (to my knowledge) we are seeing fallout from a common occurrence here on the forum, we inflate (or self inflate) egos due to an item someone posts here online. No one here is a "super star" or "guru" for the items he possesses or posts. Its usually luck or "at the right place at the right time" But when we find an item that gets a lot of "ohhh & ahhs" from our membership, we sometimes get cocky or feel like we have the biggest set on the walk. I think this is the case here.To sum it up, the seller came up with a fairly rare item that definitely turned a few heads (mine included)for whatever reason (and that should stay between the two) William sold to dave. (my offer was met with a very rude and misquided answer I might add) IF & only then if a prior agreement between Dave & William was made to return the tab if sold should there be an issue. The tab is Dave's and he can do with it what he likes.I can understand financial hardship like everyone else. Ive been forced to sell some duplicates & Im holding onto my rarer items by a thread. If we hold Dave to the standard of selling an item for profit then should we not hold William to same standards and police what he paid the original owner/collector/vet? I think not. Best to let this thread die before reputations are harmed & egos get hurt. Just my 2 pfenings worth...Richard

[all1knew]

If we hold Dave to the standard of selling an item for profit then should we not hold William to same standards and police what he paid the original owner/collector/vet?

this is a very fine line, and I can see your point. Yes, this tab and the helmet it came back with were purchased indirectly from the Veteran that brought them back to this country. Yes, I do beat the bushes trying to find good stuff out of the woodwork, who here really doesn't? I did sell to help recover my initial investment, and that is how the majority of my collection has been funded. Unfortunately, I lack the deep pockets that several here have so they don't have to list on the e-stand; I simply cannot afford to keep everything I come across. Luckily, I am a collector and I do get to keep some stuff....there was also a very large SS banner that came back with these as well.

I understand things happen and people need to liquidate a collectible to fund something else. I have flipped and purchased more to fill certain areas that I wanted to focus on, and I have numerous tunic displays that were purchased from selling the common stuff and saving up for something better. People can sell whatever they want for whatever they want, weather it be pencils to buy a house, OR medals to buy a uniform OR insignia to pay for a family crisis. I am not overly upset at the circumstances which led up to this being the case. Personally, I (along with other members of this forum in the link I provided to back up my opinion) frown upon things being bought here and sold at a retail price elsewhere. To me, after delivery of the tab, it was a very short time frame that led to it showing up on a dealer's site which to me appeared as if that was the main motif from the start. I was told this was going into an advanced foreign volunteer tab collection and looks may be deceiving. What is done is done and I can't do anything about it, but am I not allowed to have an opinion on the behavior? Like I said, I thought it was an unspoken rule of thumb that the transactions on this forum not end up like they did. Nobody likes to feel like they have been taken advantage of, and I guess I did as I thought this was going into a collection rather than to a dealer's website. To say the price went up a little after I had it is an understatement. There's nothing wrong with me having an opinion about it. These are my opinions, and I know from several PM's in the last week that I am most-certainly not alone. To many, the e-stand is viewed as a collector-to-collector marketplace and I generally tend to believe there are more collectors than dealer's purchasing material on this site. If not, and that weren't the case and everything was "just business," the supply here is far better and the picking less strenuous than beating the bushes for material. My point is that is ISN'T all just a business of supply and demand or else you'd have the Bill Shea's saving on their enormous advertising costs and just purchasing from the e-stand to turn and jack up the price up on their retail sites. I genuinely think the community in general, would frown upon that kind of thing. To me and because of this, not even the likes of the biggest dealer's purchase regularly from the forums' listings. Gottlieb didn't buy off the e-stand and the old school Motel buys still commence with no guarantee of anywhere near as many items as the e-stand has listed. I wonder if its because people wouldn't like if they did that?

I can respect that not everyone agrees with me, and I'm fine with that; it is your opinion, and I have the empathy for both sides of the fence. My opinion differs, but it is only an opinion. Was it wrong in the sense that the transaction broke any forum rules? Absolutely not, but once again, it is my opinion that as a community this type of thing should be frowned upon when dealings occur within a collector-to-collector forum. In my eyes, if everyone out there just sells out, the hobby just isn't going to survive; it can't be so cut-throat. I personally try to conduct business on this forum with some level of integrity and do not purchase off the e-stand/PM to turn and flip for a profit, regardless of my circumstances.

William Kramer