All that glisters...

It's another bright and sunny morning here in southern England, and yesterday I left the house wearing a thick woolen jumper which I had to discard as soon as I started lugging around some hefty lumps of stone, and ended up sweating in a T-shirt. I'm hoping for a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness for the next few weeks, but who knows? It is bloody England, after all.

Last night I was perusing old candlesticks on the net (like you do), and came across an interesting looking little one in a very bad photo by the seller. It had a start-bid of £9.99 (or a tenner as we say in the trade) and postage costs of £5.50, which is a little on the steep side.

I sent the seller a polite email, saying that I would love to see a picture of the underside, if he could be bothered. He had posted one crap picture only of the thing, and that picture is 'free' on eBay - or at least included in the general listing costs.

I received a reply from him this morning saying, "It would cost me 12p to put another picture up. What do you want to know?"

I simply said I wanted to know what it looked like from underneath, whilst being careful not to add 'what do you think I want to know, you tight-fisted cretin?' I might have said this if the seller had sent me that message last night when I had drunk a couple of glasses of wine, but these days - in general - I try to avoid confrontation with idiots like this on eBay. I have had physical threats from sellers who I have been trying to help by encouraging them to post more photos if they want to stand any chance at all of selling the things, and - being registered as a 'business seller' - they all have intimate knowledge of exactly where I live, if not what I look like and how I am likely to react if they pay me an unwanted visit. I simply file a complaint to eBay, who removes them as sellers from their site until they promise to behave themselves.

The last person to threaten me like this ended his message by calling me a 'profit-monger', so I took great delight in informing him that there was no such thing as a 'profit-monger', and that he probably meant to call me a 'profiteer', implying that he was virtually illiterate as well as stupid. He complained to eBay about me, and eBay told him to get lost. Good outcome.

As I write this, I have just had another message from the idiot saying that I am obviously an expert who rips people off and he is going to remove the item altogether so people like 'me' cannot buy it. I am UTTERLY confused as to why people like this even bother to list items for sale on eBay! Oh well, it looks like a good start to the day - I have acquired myself another stalker, and it's shaping up to be a good one with severe learning difficulties attached. I wonder how far away he is - probably too far for him to be able to afford the bus fare, so I can sleep easy tonight.

It's a shame, because (although he is obviously no photographer) the little cannon-shaped stick (which he/she describes as 'CANNOR SHAPED' in the title!) looks like it could be a good one, but now I shall never know... maybe. I've just tried to explain that neither me nor anyone else will know what it's worth until we see the underside, and even then, he will only get what it's worth from whoever bids on it. The more people who know it's true worth, the more people will bid, but they seem to be too stupid to understand that.

I recently bought a matching pair of 1730 sticks from an experienced dealer who did not know their true date - neither did I at the time, and I paid £75 for them. I still don't know their value, but I am guessing it to be around £300, or maybe more on a good day. A good day on the sale, not a nice day like this, with the sun shining outside, making my hoard of brass sticks glitter like gold as I rub my hands together whispering, "My pretties... my pretties..."