Buying
fossils on eBay in the early years
 More
than a decade ago I bought fossils on eBay during its early years.
If you were knowledgeable, and
careful, you could
get fossils not easily available otherwise, and there were few
fossil dealers with their own websites. But, the operable word
even then
was careful, repeat careful. This was also before eBay stores,
and auctions were sort of fun, at least at first – for others
it may have been an addition. Back in the day (circa 2005 and before),
if you watched carefully. You would quickly discern some was just
not right. Good fossils would sometimes go for more than they were
worth,
and bad fossils for way more than they were worth. A lot of
auctions were way beyond suspicious, as I learned by my own experience,
and learned more about when the better fossil dealers abandoned
eBay,
some building their own fossil shops online. There were many honest
fossil dealers who were a pleasure to deal with, others obviously
not, and knowledgeable and careful fossil buyers could pretty easily
separate them. Why did the honest fossil dealers abandon eBay – sabotage,
shill bidding, and exaggerations by the dishonest dealers? The
dishonest ones employed legions of shill bidding buddies (some
real and some
with falsified identity). A lot of shill bids pumped up the excitement
of the auctions, often making items sell for way too much, especially
when coupled with exaggerated claims of quality and rarity. This
was a true disservice to the vulnerable buyers. But, if you had
the time and was willing to spend the time, the shill bidders became
fairly apparent
by watching who bid on whose auction, since that information was
available. Still, a lot of people got taken.
If
this were the whole story, the honest dealers might not have left
eBay.
What ran them
off was sabotage, which took two forms. During this time it was
quite easy to create fictitious buyers who would shill bid. When
it was
time to change one out, they could engage in truly dastardly
acts of sabotage. They would bid up a competitor’s auction
to an extremely high price, and then vanish forever. The worst
sabotage
was to win a competitors auction for the sole purpose of leaving
negative feedback, with no recourse for the victimized seller.
One
victimized fossil dealer I’ve now known for a long time
left and told me: “you either had to revert to other seller’s
behavior to survive, or get the h%^# out of the snake pit”.
The best of the dealers followed, most never to return. It got
pretty bad, and a chart of EBay’s stock will reveal the
pain as its early heydays gave way to the need for them to clean
things
up, but
did they? Read on.
Buying
fossils on eBay in the new millennium
 The
early glory days of eBay roughly coincided with the late 1990’s
tech bubble in stocks, with eBay stock participating on the way up,
and then on the way down when the bubble burst. Amazon was also emerging,
and quickly overtook eBay as a retail venue. With auction fraud running
rampant, auction addiction having some in its grips, sellers leaving
in droves, and buyers too, eBay took actions over the years, implementing
buy-it-now and stores. It also implemented layers of non-transparency
in auctions, all under the guises of protecting privacy.
I have not bought a fossil on eBay in more than a dozen years. But,
I’ve spoken both to those who buy and those who sell, and you
can learn a lot just by watching. The current situation, especially
for the naïve buyer, is reminiscent of the old Dirty Harry movie,
when he asks the punk:
“I know what you're thinking, punk.
You're thinking "did he fire six shots or only five?" Now
to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But
being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world
and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do
I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”
From
what I’ve see and what I’ve been
told by those with first hand experience, several conclusions
can be drawn:
- There
are innumerable low cost fossils, which is really great for the
beginning collector so long as they are careful,
i.e., they compare and exercise patience. For the more
sophisticated collector,
or
the serious collector, the amount of common and low
quality fossils that
have to be waded through is a daunting task that
few will tolerate in search of a fossil of interest. EBay has become
the dumping ground for low-quality and common-as-dirt fossils from
across the globe.
- The
big dealers and producers, after high-grading fossils for other
sales venues, oft the remainder to surrogates and others
to sell on eBay (i.e., eBay has become a real dumping ground).
The sellers are often supremely unknowledgeable, as is readily
apparent
in
plagiarism
of descriptions
from respected
fossils web sites. Of course, they will often liberally seed the
stolen narrative with words such as rare and quality.
- Sadly,
I’m sure
many of the naïve buyers fall victim
to fakes, and sometimes the more sophisticated
do too. If they weren’t
falling victim, the fake fossils ubiquitous on
eBay would disappear. Some of the world's finest
fossils,
particularly
Trilobites, come out of Morocco. But, Morocco is
also the source of many of the fossil fakes that
abound
on eBay. The Virtual Fossil Museum has a great
section on fake
fossils, but the author, my friend Ralph admits
it is getting a bit dated, and promises an update.
- I’m
actually using the term “fake” as a euphemism that
encompasses entire fakes, partial fakes, significant
 reconstruction,
and exaggerated claims of quality and/or rarity. The topic is
too large for treatment here, but all of these forms of fakery,
disinformation, and exaggeration are widespread on eBay, and
your only defense if you shop there, is to
arm yourself
with knowledge – caveat emptor applies.
- Occasionally,
the serious collector stumbles upon a unique,
and/or highly desirable fossil at auction, with low
or essentially zero starting bid. This insights
bidders and the fun begins.
However, such a desirable specimen never sells
for a bargain, and many times
re-appears months later in another auction by another
seller. So, I am told that the shills of yesteryear are
still alive
and well,
but now sellers have had to become much more clandestine
in creating multiple “sellers” and
forming quid pro quo shil bidding arrangements.
Where there is a way, the dishonest
will find it, whether on
Wall Street, or on eBay.
It
seems that: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So,
before shopping for fossils on eBay ask yourself: "Do you
feel lucky?"
Respectfully
submitted, Stephen L
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