Gutta percha fraud with photo cases

[anon4now]

        There seem to be a bulk of sellers calling their pre-1870+/- photo cases 'gutta percha' when they are actually unoin cases (thermoplastic) or even paper mache. Only one instance that I kow of where the seller was parroting what their seller told them. (Photos not their field so I don't blame them, entirely.) The rest are either too stupid or lazy to learn the difference. Or they are simply frauds. They try to rationalize by saying "This really isn't my field, don't know much about, **bleep**, **bleep**, and **bleep**." If they are that ignorant or they shouldn't be selling the item. All this is like someone listing gold filled as 18K with the lame excuse "I don't know the difference." Same with listing it as 'tintype, ambrotype, daguerreotype'. Again, too lazy or too stupid to learn (or intentional fraud)? Only took me three minutes. Takes 30 seconds or less to verify.  If you don't know what you have with these cases & images you have no business selling them. And don't give me the marketing **bleep** about fraudulently listing multiple words to get seen. It make you look totally incompetent and not someone I would ever want to do business with.

         Even more frustrating is that it is impossible to get eBay's attention without filing a complaint on each one of them. If eBay cared there would be a provision to report, then require accuracy, when there are such gross abuses like these.

[anon4now]

I didn't use profanities in my initial posting. Just 'bravo-sierra'. They substituted the other making it look like something that it wasn't. 

[mudshark61369]

@anon4now,

The subject your topic is about, is from a very niche collectible area of Photography. While there are many who collect old daguerreotype or Ambrotype images, many know nothing about the cases, and for years people have mistakenly identified Union cases as Gutta Percha (percha trees sap) ones, in belief that Union cases (thermoplastic) had something to do with the Civil War, Not the process by which the cases were actually made. Also because over time both types of material change color crack or or warp, due to envirnomemtal conditions, it can be hard to correctly identify the difference.  Most people new to collecting daguerroetype/Ambotype immages, or those who have inheirited those images have no idea whatsoever about what they have. They go by what they are told. Even more often they think the image is more important or valuable than the case. 

Therefore, it would not surprise me that many misidentify Union cases for Guta Percha cases, and vice versa. It is possible that at some point in the history Thermoplastic Union Cases, people thought the cases looked like Gutta-percha, or were actually made from Gutta-percha because at the time Gutta-percha was used in the manufacture of small furniture, beads, mourning jewelry, and other small objects which emulated carved wood, and yes, even less elaborate Union Cases.

A single person reporting a seller's item will not get ebay's attention, or any action taken against the sellers of like misidentified items. Buyers opening Not As Described disputes might get ebay's attention, if a seller received enough of them for those items. The thing is that many buyers do not know the difference between the materials used in those cases to know the difference either.

For those interested.

Breifly,  Gutta Percha, Translated from Malay meaning tree sap. is a material derived from the sap of a palaquium tree, which has epoxy like qualities, when heated, and cooled, which can be molded. However since heating the sap causes tiny air bubbles to be emitted during the cooling process, they often had surface flaws which showed up when released from the mold, so thinner less intricate molds were used.  It was also became more brittle over time as well.

The term "Union" comes from the process of combining shellac, sawdust, dyes and other chemicals, which when combined together and heated can be molded. Those cases do tend to be more elaborate and detailed than the Gutta Percha ones, since in its heated state it was a more viscous material, than the sap. The processs is one of the earliest forms of plastics called (thermoplastic), and the process is still used with different materials and chemicals to this day.