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SMH68NSA
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT AGAIN!
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Greetings from the Holdaway House. The Holdaway family has owned and operated small local junk shops for several generations. They have been buying and selling for over 50 years. Mr. Holdaway closed the store but over the years he aquired a large assortment of militaria which just didn't sell well in his small community. He decided to try selling it here on Ebay but his health failed before his inventory ran out and it had fallen to Stella to sell off what was left. Now that Stella has retired and is rarely around, it is up to me. Nothing much will change but please be patient with me until I learn the business. Most of this junk dates back to before I was even born. Most of the information on this page was written by my Grandfather or my Aunt. Some of it may be out of date. But for the most part I think it still is basic common sense. While my family has been at this for many, many years, I have only been here since mid-September! I am making mistakes and pissing people off, but I'm learning fast and I'm trying to fix what I screw up, learn from my mistakes, and continue in the way my family believed in. I appreciate the tibits of information. If I list something wrong I like to know it. Thank You! However sending me emails telling me I'm stupid or calling me a crook doesn't help and will get you reported to Ebay. Please be patient with me and I'll get this figured out! NOTICE - PLEASE READ! If you wish to bid on my items you must read this paragraph, understand what it says, and agree to it's content!!! I'm sorry if I come across as mean or bad tempered but I have been robbed by three different people and the EBAY/Paypal system not only allowed it but facilitated the problem. I was warned about the EBAY/Paypal system being flawed. Now after only two months I've learned just how crooked the system is and if you buy from me you must agree to the following: NOTHING is represented to be anything other than garage sale junk! NOTHING is warranteed to be special, or even to work or function unless it says so specifically in the listing! IF YOU BID, honor your bid or I'll report you to all three credit bureaus! IF you change your mind, don't try to claim I mislisted an item. Every item is reviewed several times. I will report you to the Postmaster for attempted fraud, and to both Dealer Net and Web Alert. IF YOU LIVE in a foreign Country and want something shipped to you then you take full responsibility. I don't want to hear you whine about it being held up in customs, or seized, or lost, or broken! Again if you claim it's mislisted I'll report you to your own postal services internet fraud division! POSTAGE is getting stupid and the rules keep changing. Don't ask for cheaper postage! I get burned enough without making exceptions. If you don't want to pay for Priority don't bid. If there is a cheaper way I'll use it but it's your risk! Also packing materials are expensive, I reuse what I can but the costs get passed to you! FEEDBACK is another flawed system. Whoever posts negative feedback first then the other party cannot respond? Don't threaten me with negative feedback because I really don't care. NOW IF I've pissed you off, don't bid! If you are willing to accept these rules, welcome aboard! Vietnam Era Items. The Vietnam War while highly unpopular during the fighting, has become the current rage among collectors and investors. It has grown to be the most collected war in history. It is also the most diverse and poorly documented war and in that lies a major problem for collectors and investors alike. It has also become the most copied, faked, reproduced and replicated war. If you talk to a dozen different veterans they each tell a different story because they fought a different kind of war. There is the Marine who fought and bled in a foxhole for twenty days or more at a time. He rarely traveled more than a few kilometers and hot meals and cold beer were rare. He has a real hard time relating to the Air Cav who flew home to base after each battle. Does that mean the Air Cav contributed less to the fighting? Of course not, it was just a different kind of war yet neither soldier can really understand the other. Just consider how many different units served in Vietnam. This diversity has served to create large voids in the knowledge available. Another problem is that everyone is an "Expert" on Vietnam and quick to offer an opinion. There are very, very few true "Experts" on any single topic of the Vietnam War, and there are no "Experts" who know everything about Vietnam. There are also allot of areas of collecting that have no "Experts" at all. There are very few reference works available on Vietnam. The few that do exist are often poorly researched and contradict each other. The internet has proven to be a valuable resource tool but unfortunately web sites are started daily based on little or poor research and there are even a few created solely to manipulate the collectors market. That puts all of the burden on the collector. With prices climbing higher every day, dealers are scrambling to sell anything related to the war. Never before has "Let the buyer beware" been more true. On any single day, Ebay is loaded with extremely rare Vietnam collectables. If it is valuable someone will replicate it. There are shops in Vietnam today who are reproducing almost everything from dog tags to flags. The stuff is often made by the same people who made it 30 years ago, and produced on the same machines using the same materials. The copies are extremely hard to distinguish from the origionals, and even experienced collectors can get fooled. There are some things you can do to keep from wasting allot of money. USE COMMON SENSE! Know as much as you can about what you collect. Read, ask questions, learn! Try to know who you buy from or at least be comfortable with them. If you want an extremely rare item and there are ten on Ebay for cheap it should tell you something. Last, IF YOU ARE IN DOUBT about any item, DON'T BUY IT! Nothing is so rare that it won't be for sale again. Pictures I do not have a scanner or digital camera. I'm at the mercy of a friend for scans and photo processing is both slow and expensive. When I have more than one of the same item I will use the same scan for each of them. I have also noticed that scanned images seem to distort slightly and colors seem to shift a shade or two. Policies It is really important to us to maintain a high degree of customer satisfaction. I will go to great lengths to please you, however I do have a few simple rules that must be followed. I reserve the right to reject any bidder with low or negative feedback. PAYMENT is expected within 10 days unless prior arrangements have been made. I will leave negative feedback on all deadbeat bidders and report the bigger ones to Equifax Credit Bureau. I accept Pay-pal, Bid-pay, and Money Orders. I will take a cashier's check but do not accept personal checks and they will be returned. Please do not send cash. I will not accept Western Union, Foriegn Currency, or any other method not listed. DEPOSITS are non-refundable. SHIPPING is by USPS only unless size or weight prohibits. First Class mail is at your risk. Priority mail with tracking is my preference. If you want insurance then I self insure. INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING will be USPS Priority International unless I find a better option. We have had allot of mail being held up or siezed by customs. All International shipments are at your risk! I will do all I can to help but the USPS can only track your package until it is loaded on the plane to leave this country. All items are shipped either on Monday or Friday but we are running as much as 10 days slow. Please be patient and the low price and item quality will make it worth the wait! I am not a collector and I really don't know very much about this stuff but I have tried to identify these items using the following reference works; "Uniforms of the Elite Forces" by Leroy Thompson, "Badges & Insignia of the Elite Forces" by Leroy Thompson, "U.S. Military Knives, Bayonets, & Machetes - book 3" by M. H. Cole, "Paper Tigers - 4th edition" by Brad Peterson, "Wanted - the Reward offers of the Vietnam War" by Peterson, "Identification Cards, Passes, & Documents of the Vietnam War" by Brad Peterson, "NVA & Viet Cong Wartime Documents" by Gary D. Murtha, "Intelligence Collection Guide" by the Combined Documents Exploitation Center, "National Catalog of Psyops Materials" by the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, "Identifying the Fakes" by Prof. James Burgett, "Psychological Lieflets Catalog" by the 246th Psyops Battalion. I will provide a letter of providence if requested and I have had a large number of these items evaluated and graded. RETURNS: Full bid price credits are offered on most single items listed. Certificates and documents are not returnable, just to many people who copy them and then return them! I do list many items in sets or lots and since these are commonly made up from items of different origions I cannot offer returns on these unless I have mixed up identifying them. If you wish to return an item you must contact me within 3 days of receiving the item. After you return the item I will credit your full bid price but not shipping costs. Any credit requested in contradiction to these terms will cost me money and I will pass those costs on to you. Many items are consigned and if the consignor has already been paid all I can credit you is my consignment fee. Your credit may be considerably less than your origional bid so please follow the rules. After you return the contradictory item I will credit your adjusted bid price. All credits expire after one year from the date of issue. Lastly, It has been brought to my attention that there are a few problems common to selling on Ebay that I'm not used to in face to face sales. I keep getting email warning me about various bidders or sellers. I find that a little discomforting. It seems there are a few less than honorable people out there who like to prey on both the bidders and the sellers. When the internet became common a few years ago it created a whole new interest in collecting. It allowed the average person access to items that just a few years before were only seen at collectors shows. This increased interest served to both drive the prices up and encouraged veterans to dig deep and sell off their hidden treasures, many of which had never before been offered for sale. However, the internet offered new possibilities for the dishonest also and they have learned to manipulate Ebay. For that reason I've chosen to keep my auctions private and have blocked any bidder that I have received more than a few warnings about. I will also work with Ebay and local law enforcement to stop these individuals.
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