Good point Mike. Years ago, when I bought the Blue Mellotron on eBay, one guy kept pushing the bid. Although I prevailed, when I got to Connecticut and saw the machine I found that the seller had totally misrepresented the machine. I ended up getting him to lower the price substantially. Then I found out that the other bidder was a friend of his and had been running the bid up. When I was done with him I ended up getting the Tron for $400.00. It wasn't worth any more than that. I ended up learning a valuable lesson. I won't buy Mellotrons on eBay anymore and I do far more homework on any high ticket item I buy there. I no longer will list Mellotrons for sale on eBay either.
Frank
In a message dated 4/27/2011 2:57:32 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, mike.dickson@gmail.com writes:
The overarching problem with eBay is that it is pretty easy to be entirely dishonest. Not that long ago a guy with a Hammond X to sell made up the 'going rate' for it by staging four other 'auctions' for a similar product and having the price go through the ceiling, thereby setting what appeared to be the market price. People don't really research what they see on eBay - they tend to pay what they can afford and never consider the possibility that the seller is really a con man. I know eBay have some forms of protection and detection against this thing happening (as well as ghost bidding, etc) but they cannot really hope to be effective over all possibilities.
We've seen several cases of Mellotrons for sale over the last few years where it is pretty obvious to anyone that it's a fake sale. Maybe there are people out there who are bonkers over Chamberlins, but really - if this sale is genuine then it's way over the odds for the article, let alone an article you are effectively buying sight unseen from someone you are perhaps unlikely to meet.