With over 30 years of antique selling experience, Fiona Kenny (the Antique Goddess) and Mark Silverstein (impertinent servant to the Goddess - or so he would have you believe...) have been selling on Ebay and the internet for 9 years. We have both had shops, wholesaled, run an antique mall, run shows, retailed and appraised antiques and collectibles. Both collect, of course - Fiona is an Arts & Crafts fan & jewellery addict, and Mark is a music fan(atic). Fiona is also a Certified Appraisers Guild of America (CAGA) qualified appraiser. We take pride in both our merchandise quality and our seller integrity. You can buy from us with confidence!
We firmly believe that our customers have an absolute right to privacy; your name, contact information and any transaction details are never shared with any other person or firm. We also do not discuss either to whom an item was sold nor do we divulge the purchase price. SHIPPING FROM CANADA: Unfortunately Canada Post can be complicated and is somewhat more expensive than USPS, but they are our most reasonable delivery service. They have a few strange rules for shipping, but these are the ones you need to know: items under 2.2lbs./1kg. are small packets and over 2.2lbs./1kg. are parcels. Both can go surface or air. Small packet items have an inflexible low insurance for loss value, insurance cannot be added to them. Large parcel surface or air mail can be insured for loss ONLY (damage insurance is not available, please see the INSURANCE section below), and cost of shipping is also determined by how large the parcel is, besides the weight, so a 2.5 pound valise in a large size carton will be assessed at 9 lbs. for shipping charges while a small item can be shipped to the US as a small packet (if it is under 2.2 pounds/1 kilogram). We quote the least expensive surface rates in our auctions and listings. We are happy to give quotes for air shipment and quotes for any other country, so please feel free to email us at merday@cogeco.ca. Items will be shipped by this least expensive rate unless you request otherwise. If you are in a hurry for the item and you are in the US or Europe or Asia, we can send it by XpressPost (generally 4-5 days delivery to the US and 4-10 days delivery to Europe and Asia - not available for every country, so please email). We can also ship by Fedex, but please note it is more expensive usually - we are happy to get a quote for you. Please note that we do not use UPS, as they refuse to insure anything antique from here, and they have shown a sad tendency to break stuff... If you choose FedEx air, they will pick up here (though not on weekends). They are very fast & reliable, but again, much more expensive than the postal service. We do pack carefully with bubble wrap & foam peanuts. CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS: If you choose a credit card payment and your item is over $85 US, it MUST be shipped as a fully insured parcel (we will send you the quotes). We will ship only to the confirmed billing address or confirmed alternate address for your credit card; we are unable to ship to alternate addresses if they are not registered with your credit card company (can be done over the phone). If we are unable to confirm the address and information through your bank or credit card company we will be unable to process the sale and another payment method may be required. Many foreign and some US banks will not confirm this information, and we will let you know if we can't accept your credit card.
INSURANCE/CUSTOMS REQUIREMENTS: Insurance is available for loss only, however rates vary, and we will send you a quote after the auction. Small packets include $75 US worth of insurance, however if you require full insurance on expensive items they MUST be shipped parcel post. Items over 100 years old will be declared as antique and most countries do not assess duties and taxes on such items, but some do - you may want to check with your post office or Customs for how it works where you are. If you have specific customs declaration requirements, please let us know.
DELIVERY: Delivery can be fast or slow - a parcel took 4 days to get to the UK and has taken as long as 10 days to get to a spot in Ontario, Canada (where we are, sigh). It CAN take up to 3 weeks at times, but it generally arrives in 6-10 days if sent air mail and 8-20 days by surface. Air mail to Europe/Asia/Africa/Australia generally is 6-10 days, but surface mail can be (and usually is) from 5-10 weeks. Mail delivery within Ontario is 1-3 days, and depending on the service (we usually use expedited post) anywhere from 2-10 days for other parts of Canada. In 5 years we have only had 1 package go permanently lost to the US (and that was registered!) and only two to Europe/Asia/Africa/Australia. So far, we have never had an uninsured parcel get lost, but we leave the insurance option up to you, unless we have indicated in the auction that the item must be shipped insured. If you choose not to insure an item, you are agreeing to accept the risk - only parcels are tracked and financially recoverable if lost (if insurance is purchased). If you have an alternate preference for shipping, we will accomodate whenever possible. Our shipping rates are higher than the US - we are not charging packing and handling fees, that is just the reality of shipping in Canada.
PAYMENT OPTIONS: We will contact you shortly after the close of an auction; please don't pay us until you have heard from us. If you do not hear from us within 24 hours, assume there is an email difficulty, and let us know. Our email is merday@cogeco.ca and our phone number is 905-682-0090 (We are on Eastern Standard Time, and would appreciate calls being between 10am-7pm EST only please).**Please note that we no longer accept PayPal, and won't make an exception and accept it again** We accept the following:
-Visa, MasterCard (payable by encrypted secure server (link supplied with our payment information letter or directly through the ORDER/ENQUIRE button on the item page),
-personal or business cheques from the US and Canada (held for clearance)
-retailer or bank money orders or postal money orders (please note that the GREEN, US-only US postal service money orders are not negotiable outside of the US, so be specific at the post office and request the International money orders (which are pink-orange), which are accepted here.
-bank drafts
-securely wrapped cash sent registered mail
- -direct bank to bank wire transfer
Detailed payment information will be provided to you when we send you our winner confirmation letter after the close of an auction.
SELLING & RETURN POLICIES: We try to describe details on our items as thoroughly as possible. We examine our pieces carefully and we do note all details of condition (chips, cracks, scratches, wear to paint & trim, crazing, fading, staining, restorations and repairs, dirty fabric - anything that constitutes damage). We have had comprehensive experience in grading items for sale, and we try to point out all details as carefully as possible, so you can make an informed bid. We grade conservatively - the overwhelming majority of our feedback indicates that the piece is as good or usually even better than the customer expected. We offer pictures and/or descriptions of any trademarks where our camera makes it possible, and any reference details we have been able to find (country of origin, manufacturer, etc). If we have no expertise or information about the item we will say so in the description. We are happy to answer any and all further relevant questions about the piece before the auction ends. We try to offer good clear pictures of our items, and we are happy to supply further picture views on request (requests put in the last day of auctions are not always possible, so please ask early, but we will try our best). We put an estimate of the age of the piece whenever possible. Our items are antique or vintage, so minor reasonable signs of use should be expected, but our grading is careful - on the odd occasion when it is in truly unused condition, we will say so. We do not offer a return for any reason other than that we have thoroughly misrepresented the piece. If we decide a refund is warranted, please note that we do not offer a shipping cost refund. We expect any returns to be done in a prompt & timely manner, and marked as we have indicated in our email agreeing to the return, wrapped as properly as it was sent and in the condition it was sent. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don't bid.
FEEDBACK/NON-PAYERS: We expect civil and honest behaviour from our customers and we promise the same. We will exchange feedback when the item has been received and you have let us know that you have received it, as we do not consider the sale concluded until then. If payment has not been received within 21 days, or if there is no reply to our enquiries or reminders, we will immediately send a non-paying bidder form to eBay, which will be followed later with the final value credit fee request and the appropriate feedback. We recognize that events can intervene, or the postal service can be eccentric, but we expect people to keep in contact if there is a problem, and we will do the same. We have found that the overwhelming majority of our customers on ebay have been a pleasure to deal with, but a few bad apples...
RESERVE POLICY: We very rarely use reserves, but on the odd occasion we do. Sometimes a consignor requests it. We set reserves and opening bids at a realistic, generally wholesale price because we do want to sell our items, and we don't accept consignments from people with excessively high reserves. We don't reveal reserves during the auction, nor will we stop an auction for any reason other than listing errors on our part. We believe that you are the best judge of what you consider to be a fair price, and if what we consider the minimum acceptable price isn't met, we won't sell it. For the most part, we simply prefer to put the item at our lowest acceptable price with no reserve, and that is what you will find with most of our auctions.
To see all feedback for this member, go to the Member Profile page.
To protect bidder privacy, when the price or highest bid on an item reaches or exceeds a certain level, User IDs will be displayed as anonymous names. For auction items, a bold price means at least one bid has been received.
Note: Anonymous names may appear more than once and may represent different bidders.
)
)
)
)