Day Off?
We often work Sunday's, but do manage to get an occasional day off. This was a Sunday off, until we got a call on our mobile from our son, who was still monitoring a number of our listings at home. We were trying to get a pleasant walk in the sunshine before starting another week. This coming week is going to be harder than normal as our office manager is on holiday, and we have a new staff member who will need intensive training starting on Tuesday. As a result of the phone call, we cancelled the rest of our day off, at about 3. p.m., and are still at the office at gone 8 p.m. trying to sort out ebay's mess.

Out of Sequence E-mails
Checking our e-mails, we found four from ebay, but we cannot understand the strange sequence. In case you can, we have provided a link to each of them below.

1. Email #1 Time Stamped 05:48:04 -0800
   This asks us to confirm some of our details on our ebay registration page. About a week ago we noticed that we had stated our telephone number as 01235-343081 instead of 01253-343081, and had corrected it, so we thought. We checked it again today, and found both numbers listed, seems like ebay's "amend" form had added the extra one instead of replacing the old old.
   It also asked for other information such as identity, proof of address, proof of ownership of goods.
   We registered with ebay in 2001, have a feedback rating of 870+, pay them about £2,000 per month in fees, and they suddenly decide to ask who we are!
   Just about everything you could need to know about us is on our ebay shop page, or on our ebay buyer's information page.
2. Email #2 Time Stamped 05:51:48 PST
   Notifies us that all our auctions, over 240 were cancelled, and that we will get a separate email explaining why.
3. Email #3 Time Stamped 06:27:41 PST
   Tells us ebay cocked up, and don't need our information, our account has been re-instated. It fails to tell us why our ebay shop has disappeared, and how to get our 240+ listings back.
4. Email #4 Time Stamped 06:29:29 -0800
   Asks us to update our contact information. My date of birth appears as 01 January 1900 Now all this nonsense makes me feel older, but not this old! I certainly never entered this misinformation, and can't ever remember being asked for my DOB.

The Internet & Changes in Coin Collecting
You may remember several years ago that I told you that the internet would create enormous change in the numismatic business, affecting coin magazines, coin fairs, and traditional coin dealers. We believe we have leaders amongst UK coin dealers in our use of the internet. Our first web site was up and running by November 1998, since then we have added more sites, each dealing with a more specialised aspect. Our sales have been exponential in this period. From £1/4 million per annum in 1998, we now turn over this amount in a fortnight.

Popular Culture?
The marketing muscle of auction sites such as Ebay has atttracted many people to buy and sell on the internet, and this has had changes for good and bad. Good because many people who would never have been interested in buying coins, or perhaps never having had easy access to a coin dealer, can now find thousands of them using search engines such as Google. Specialised dealers can reach specialist collectors at the opposite end of the globe.
Demand for local items such as tokens and medallions has rocketed, and we are delighted that this reflects a broader appreciation of these underrated numismatic items.
One downside is that Ebay has made it easy for car boot style amateurs to offer badly described coins to a gullible and ignorant public. We regularly see Maria Theresa thalers offered on Ebay, and the description, or lack of it, would leave buyers thinking they were buying an original 1780 coin. We saw one which claimed to have been catalogued by a dealer sell at £14, we sell them on our website at £7, with discounts for quantity. They are of course restirlkes, and we always clearly describe them as such. Amusingly one of ours sold on Ebay for £31! Some people think because it's an auction, then it must be a bargain.

Back to our Main Information about Chard for Ebay Buyers page.