A collector’s nightmare: What do you do when your seller disappears?

Friday, Dec. 8, 2017 — Happy Holidays to followers of my humble blog! I’ve already forwarded my Christmas list to Santa, and I’m making room at the operating position for what I’m hoping Santa will see fit to bring me — my mint condition Horace Martin Autoplex. Doesn’t hurt to wish, right?

Actually, I’m bummed out, though not in relation to anything about the holiday season. It’s all about eBay.

Ahhh  yes … eBay, that marketplace where crazed collectors of various and sundry “stuff” can get their fill of whatever catches their fancy. What caught my eye recently was a copy of the 1943 McElroy Chart of Codes and Signals that showed up for auction recently. This copy was allegedly signed by Mac himself. I never bought a reproduction from Tom French when he was selling them (still kicking myself for that), so a signed copy was attractive. I followed the auction and was successful with a winning bid. The seller emailed me after the close of the auction with an invoice; I immediately paid for it.

And then I began to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact the seller, I finally had to contact eBay today. I don’t want a refund, I want the $*@(#* poster; but at this point, it appears something serious has happened to the seller and his ability to complete the sale. I had a similar thing happen to me when I had an emergency surgery some years back, but that only involved a week delay. But the truth is if I became incapacitated (or dead), no one in my family would have access to this blog or my ebay accounts. I’m bitching about not getting a poster, and in reality, the seller may have be dealing with a family tragedy or other issue. Sometimes you have to put this collecting business in perspective … with that said, I still want that poster!

I shouldn’t complain I suppose … for all the many transactions I’ve had on eBay since 1999, I have only encountered a handful of issues similar to this one. I hope the seller is OK.

BENCHER? I HARDLY KNEW HER! Please pardon my malappropriation of a classic punch line, sometimes the low-hanging fruit is just too tempting to pass up. Where was I … oh, yes, Bencher, as in the paddle company now owned by Vibroplex. I didn’t need another one, but a mint condition Bencher BY-1 was posted with a Buy It Now under (I think) $30. The price was too good to pass up — and it hardly looks used. Even has the allen wrench clipped on the bottom.

Isn’t it interesting how we often judge CW operators? Recently I checked into the CW net I often do, and had my headphones around my neck talking with my son while half-way listening to the net. In the middle of our conversation, I heard our section manager check in — not by his call, but I recognized his fist. My son, who could hear the received audio from my headphones asked me how I knew it was him after nearly only two or three CW characters. It was simple — he has used a bug for many, many years and has a very recognizable fist. I can tune the band and ID him in a heart beat. There are other ops whose fist I got to know well too. CW keyboards and keyers have reduced the individuality of a lot of CW operators; perfect CW sounds mostly the same no matter who sends it. Its nice to listen to but has little personality. Of course, I’ve heard my share of really awful CW (received as well as sent!) … one OM was apparently new to CW and using a straight key, he formed his characters perfect, and his spacing was uniform. Unfortunately, the space between words, calls and prosigns was identical to the space between characters. It was hard as hell to copy what he was sending once he got away from the expected transmissions like …  NAMEHRBILLBILLQTHQTHANYTOWNANYTOWNHWCPYOMBTUBK.

I’m not the best CW op in the world, and my fist isn’t anything to brag about, but trying to copy the OM’s code gave me a headache.

Enough of my rant this time …. Merry Christmas to all, and a special thank you to all the ops out there who enjoy using bugs and other manual keying devices … thanks for preserving the tradition of the individual fist.

73 de KY4Z … 73 SK …. dit dit …