The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[WalesLax]

I will throw this out here, as this listing contains a number of my pet-peeves of pipes on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Professiona....c100010.m2109

The things that annoy me / I look at as red-flags:
- seller does not say much about the pipes - I struggle to say 'not knowing anything about the pipes,' when this seller does reference where they were sold, but you would think they would share more if they knew more and really wanted to sell the item
- few pictures, pictures are from a distance, closeups are fuzzy/poor quality, and/or more pictures of the (usually worthless) accessories than of the pipes themselves
- use of the word "Professional" in describing the pipes. I kind of sometimes wish one of the well known pipe makers would release an "amateur bagpipes" set, perhaps for April Fools Day
- "sold as seen," especially when you haven't shown much at all
- "no refunds," which I have been told you would never hear from someone selling you a worthwhile set of pipes
- while not explicitly stated in this auction, in general, the selling of "vintage" pipes, when the pipes either aren't that old or don't have anything special/unique about them. Old and 'vintage' don't really mean a ton with bagpipes if they aren't made well. What drove me to include this on this set is the fact that when I check the referenced seller, Sterling Bagpipes, I see that you can buy new pipes from them for roughly what this seller is asking, if not more. If the pipes had something unique or were a particularly desired maker and/or vintage, that makes sense, but for what appears to be a very 'average' set at best, doing so seems unrealistic at best.

I am looking forward to hearing all of the assessment mistakes that I assuredly made!

Rob

[OC Richard]

I will throw this out here, as this listing contains a number of my pet-peeves of pipes on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Professiona....c100010.m2109

The things that annoy me / I look at as red-flags:
- seller does not say much about the pipes
- few pictures, pictures are from a distance, closeups are fuzzy/poor quality
- use of the word "Professional" in describing the pipes
- "sold as seen," especially when you haven't shown much at all
- "no refunds"

Exactly right on every point!

And his listing originally was even worse, it had one blurry far-away photo and the only description was "sold as seen". What?!

I messaged him right away saying that if he wanted to increase the chance of his pipes selling he would either have to have more photos, or more description, or better yet both. I asked him if he knew who made the pipes.

He said "it's in the listing".

I said that in fact his listing did not say anything about who made the pipes, and I asked him again.

He repeated "it's in the listing".

This time I copied and pasted the listing, and finally he became aware that he hadn't mentioned the maker.

He updated the listing with the maker mentioned and a couple more photos, but still I doubt that he will sell that set at that price.

I'd never heard of Stirling Bagpipes, but if it's true that the maker apprenticed under Nigel Richard (who recently passed away) then he should know what he's about.

https://www.stirlingbagpipes.com/about