Sellers who misrepresent their items.

[vintagewares]

I've been a member of Ebay for 24 years.  I buy and sell antique and vintage jewelry.  This category is one of the largest listings on Ebay and, unfortunately, rife with misinformation and improper listing practices.  

The more common is identifying pieces as "Victorian" and/or "vintage" when they are not. 

I am asking Ebay to include prominently, a category that asks the seller if what they are selling is genuine antique/vintage or a look-alike or reproduction and say so in their headings.  If they don't know, then have that option as well and insist that information appear in their headings.

I sift through hundreds of listings daily to buy, and it is a complete waste of time to view items that are new, that look vintage but were made in a foreign country the day before yesterday or are listed to deceive.  Sellers must take responsibility and find out what they are selling instead of obviously looking for a quick buck by guessing, or worse, downright lying about what they have.  

[gurlcat]

YES!  I also learned that about white gold while researching these earrings.  In fact I think the original buyer might have had them custom-made because white gold wasn't widely available until the 20's.  They created it differently from today, using an alloy that made the color much paler than regular gold but still slightly yellow (I would call it 'champagne'), then after a while they started flashing it with rhodium to make it truly blue-white.  Another item I got was a 1940's era Esemco white gold and emerald bracelet that the seller sold for cheap because they thought the purity mark was false, that the piece was a fake.  I knew Esemco didn't do that but I could see why the person thought it; the rhodium was worn off all the high points.  I took it to a jeweler and got it re-flashed for $40 I think, and sold it for $800.  If it wasn't too small for my wrist I might have kept it, so pretty!

Here's a nice image I just found online for anyone interested in gold coloring.  It's showing the versions in 18k, but 14k wouldn't be much different. 

[soh.maryl]

Yes, despite my being, in your estimation, "new here", I know what the rules are about selling copies etc on eBay.  I was pointing out that, unless every piece of jewelry listed on eBay can be verified by an expert, there will always be those sellers who disregard the rules, knowingly or otherwise.  Nowhere have I suggested that this was right.  

[gurlcat]

Psst.  It was the OP, not 'old.crows.nest' who said you were new here.   

[gurlcat]

Here's one incentive to put a modern piece in the vintage category.  Suggested promoted rates are higher the more 'saturated' a category is, in other words, the more promotion it would take to be high in search results, for people to see it.  You have to pay more to get eyeballs on a modern fashion piece. 

[old.crows.nest]

@gurlcat I vaguely remember a discussion about how another selling site encourages Sellers to flood their listing information with keywords that are not necessarily relative to the item being listed. All this so they can push their listing's views. If this is the case why wouldn't similar happen here?

🙄☹️

[gurlcat]

You mean another selling platform like Posh or Merc?  Wouldn't surprise me.  As for Ebay, I've not seen any such encouragement from the company, but I certainly have seen plenty of Youtubers recommending using as many words in the title as possible.  And honestly that's a GOOD recommendation, as long as all the words are appropriate and true.  

Another thing to consider is, if you surveyed 100 people asking them "What does it mean to call a piece of jewelry 'vintage'?" I suspect you would get some wildly different answers.  People who's first language isn't English might have no idea whatsoever.  And even native-born English speakers ......well, thinking on some of the stupidest people I've ever met or conversed with online ...... I would not be surprised if some number said "used", like maybe 'vintage' is a nicer-sounding way to say 'used' .  So if they were trying to use all of the available characters in a listing title, they might well put 'vintage' in there for that reason.   Who knows.