Selmer on EBAY

Shawn

@!!%&U seller". Either point of view is totally understandable. However, regardless of the price, he was using someone else's software, that being eBay itself, to execute a legally binding process between two individuals. He should have researched this aspect better before ever committing to sell the item there, but as far as I'm concerned he made the error and should have to live with the mistake. People make these kinds of decisions all the time and usually it comes back to bite them in the rear because they failed to do proper research beforehand. Imagine, as the buyer, you've spent countless hours, as Wim points out, worrying about your finances and talking it over with your spouse all for it to be pulled at the last minute with no clear explanation. That's just not cool, regardless of how much the seller is losing because of the mistake that he put himself in by not doing the proper research.

I've never sold something as expensive as a Selmer on eBay, but as a microcosm of this situation a long time ago I once sold a Fender Stratocaster for about $1,000 less than its value. Did I regret doing so? You bet, but I saw the auction through to the end as it was legally binding that I do so.

Buco

Besides the controversy of the matter on hand I really enjoyed different but very insightful points of view.

I personally think you can't call the guy as inexperienced ebayer with over 160 transactions and a perfect feedback score.
He simply didn't have a stomach to see it through.
Poor dude, he may have gone through a nervous breakdown for all we know and I do sympathize with him in that way.
Especially after Denis said that he spent his life savings to obtain that instrument originally.

Knowing what we know now from Michael's and a few more comments, had the auction gone all the way it would have sold very closely to it's current market value, minus a few thousand perhaps.
But if you're in a need of cash and quickly then it's a reasonable sum to take home, I'd think.

Also I don't think things like this hurt the Selmer guitar market.
It's not like there is original Selmer stock out there that will move the market down by this transaction.
People who know what these instruments are worth these days will continue to expect to pay the current value price.
People who don't will think it's insane to pay as much as $13,000 for an acoustic guitar.
Just like my friends did, whom I was having a lunch with soon after the auction ended and showed them the price that I though was the selling price. And I told them had this guitar been displayed on sale in the shop it would have been around 30K. They thought that just can't be true.

While we're on ebay subject I'll share the strategy I use to hopefully maximize the potential of live bidding in the last minutes:
first I choose the 10 day auction to make sure more people will have a chance to see the item.
And secondly I schedule the start of the auction so it ends sometimes over the weekend so that people that are interested in bidding can be around more likely.

It'll be interesting to know the future of this instrument if we get a chance to hear about it.

Jeff Moore

Michael, Family is good. So happy to have them close.
The Moreno is good. I play it seldom but it is a powerhouse.
It's nice to see this "community" work out thoughts on an iconic guitar in trouble. I've sweated the Ebay sweat many times but never with the insider info like on this thread with the rest of the bidding and nature of the seller known. Ebay's pretty anonymous otherwise.
Live and learn.

Michael Bauer

I miss that guitar from time to time. That thing was Busato-loud!

Glad to hear things are going well. This was a fun thread, to be honest. Much hand-wringing, but it all came right in the end. I don't think anyone really wanted to see one of our own get ruined like that.

Jazzaferri

lots of passion though.....I agree with Bob ...it's probably a good idea to negotiate a commission with Michael or someone with similar expertise unless one is well known in the appropriate collecting world.