Selling on eBay since 1998
We sell a variety of antiques, collectibles and ephemera. We specialize in several areas including nineteenth and twentieth century photography, mechanical banks, other antique toys, political pinback buttons, and advertising trade cards,
Ebay's Star System
The DSRs~ Detailed Seller Ratings
We take pride in the Detailed Seller Ratings that have been left for us on eBay by happy eBay customers since the star system began in May 2007. Because many of you might not know about the importance of the DSRs to sellers, we are providing additional information about our goals and about eBay's DSR Ratings.
The Standard is Five Stars
Our goal is to provide five star service. Five star service on ebay is our standard service. What is confusing about the Detailed Seller Ratings is that it may appear to you when making a choice of how many stars to leave that a rating of four stars is "good." An average rating of four stars is NOT considered a good Seller rating by ebay. An average rating of four stars is considered substandard and sellers with average ratings as low as four stars are penalized. I think that most ebay customers are not intending to penalize a seller when they leave a rating of four stars.
If intending to leave less than five stars for for us in any of the Detailed Seller Ratings, we would appreciate it if you would let us know by email why you would leave us less than five stars and how we can improve our performance. The DSR system is anonymous which means that we have no clue why someone would leave us less than five stars.
DSR: Item as Described
We provide clear photographs of the items that we sell. For many items we provide multiple views from different angles and close up views. We examine all of our items closely and describe flaws in detail to provide you with as much information as possible. We provide so much information that in many cases our buyers are pleased and surprised to find out when it arrives that it is much better than they were expecting.
Communication
We respond to all emails and answer all questions to the best of our ability. If we don't know the answer, we try to find out what the answer is if possible. We do ask that potential buyers email with any questions before the final day of an auction listings' end. We are not always at the computer on the last day of a listing so it is best to ask before the last day.
DSR: Shipping Time
Most of the time we ship within 24 to 48 hours of receiving payment. Your ebay rating of shipping time is a rating of our performance, not the performance of the U.S. Mail system. We let you know as soon as we have brought your package to the post office. Once we put your item in the hands of the postal service, the time it takes to get to you and if and how you are notified that your piece has arrived is out of our control. Thus, when you rate our shipping time, we would appreciate it if you would rate us on what we do, not on what the Post Office does.
We had a situation where the Post Office delivered a package to a television shopping network's handling station instead of to our customer who happened to have an address near the zip code area of the shopping network. The package sat for two weeks in a trailer truck until the shopping network's staff found it as they went through their mail and then returned it to the post office to deliver to our customer. We discovered this through communications from our customer and then through communications with the Post Office. We did all that we could possibly do to get the package to our customer who was understanding that what had occurred was out of our control. We had done our job but someone at the Post Office had made an error. Please do not rate us (or other sellers on ebay) based on the performance of the mail service, especially if you are overseas. We work hard at providing excellent service but we are unable to deliver the packages personally to you. We do have to depend on services such as the U.S. Mail.
Please do not penalize us for errors that are made by the U.S. Mail.
DSR: Shipping and Handling Charges
We have experience in sending out thousands of packages through the U.S. Mail. We pack every item with the goal of it arriving safely no matter how far its journey. Our charges for shipping are for our costs of packing and shipping your package. We provide the information on the shipping charges within the United States in every listing. We are happy to provide information on shipping to other countries and ask potential buyers to ask us about those charges prior to bidding and prior to the last day of the end of a listing if this is important to you. We do not add a handling charge. If the cost of shipping your package is more than we had anticipated, we do not charge an additional amount. If the charge turns out to be significantly less, we refund the difference. We make no profit on our shipping charges.
)
