Insane Native American policy

[saint*steven]

Attached please find a pop-up warning through which it is impossible to dismiss or click through.  It's related to eBay's insane policies pertaining to selling Native American artifacts.    Nevermind that the "policy" indicates that the item should be listed in some Native American > Non-Native American Crafts category (which also gets the same blocker page, btw), the item we are listing lays no claims to be Native American made, and we originally tried to list it in a category that doesn't pertain to Native American items either.  It's a jewelry item which incorporates an "Indian Head" nickel.  I would call some "customer service" rep in India to point this out, but I shudder to contemplate discussing jewelry which we don't even claim to BE Indian to a real Indian. 

[allthingsbrooklyn]

I get the same pop up when I'm trying to list antique prints with indians in the image. I can't get thru on the new listing form but the old one still lets me click thru.

[mistwomandancing]

We called those buffalo nickles..... can't think that would trigger the warning you are seeing.  I've never heard of them being call indian head nickles.

[buckle*your*seatbelt]

There is only so many ways that ebay can cover their tushies. If it means they prevent you from listing your stuff so be it.. get indian custmer service on the horn and get ta spalinin

[sokpop]

I get the same warning when I list "Indian Tree" (a china pattern.) Yes, it is a buffalo nickel, although there is an Indian Head penny from (I think) the early 1900's.

[needleinahaystack714714]

It's probably a small inconvenience for most sellers that may help them avoid a $250,000 fine, 5 year jail sentance or both for a first time violation offense of the  Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990.

I have a few items that the message pops up on, but I am able to click through it and still list the item.  If the pop up is not allowing you to click through, I'm thinking this is a glitch that should be reported

[circa1901]

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@mistwomandancing wrote:

We called those buffalo nickles..... can't think that would trigger the warning you are seeing.  I've never heard of them being call indian head nickles.

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I've always called them Indian head nickles.

eta ...It appears that the names are interchangeable ...

"The Buffalo nickel or Indian Head nickel was a copper-nickel five-cent piece struck by the United States Mint from 1913 to 1938. It was designed by sculptor James Earle Fraser. As part of a drive to beautify the coinage, five denominations of US coins had received new designs between 1907 and 1909."

[saint*steven]

Regardless of what one may call the nickel (or how one spells nickel, for that matter), the advice from  the pop-up is to list in collectibles > cultures & enthnicities > Native American US > non Native American crafts. I would be interested in learning WHAT object is Native American but simultaneously non-Native anyway, but that still isn't really the problem.   If you DO that, it's not going to work if you say "Indian" in the title and the pop-up is non-negotiable for me-it just stops me and I can't dismiss it or click through it.  I'm not describing an item as something made by anyone native American, I'm describing a bracelet made in southwestern style which incorporates a nickel with an image of an Indian on it. 

There IS work-around.  If I compose the listing without the word Indian (substituting the name of the designer of the coin, but yes, I could have said "buffalo"), the listing will take if I schedule it and the system will then allow me to edit "Indian" back in.

I think I'll risk the heavy Federal fine since I'm not peddling stuff as being made by Natives.  I wouldn't have been surprised to see this happen in 2010, when EVERYTHING a seller might do was wrong, but I was beginning to believe that sanity was returning to the market place.  At the moment, there are some 3300 listings that mention Indian Head nickels, and I didn't peruse the entire list, but the first 200 Best Matches are coins, so maybe it's ok in coins, but certainly not in bracelets.

[femmefan1946]

Isn't clipping coins illegal in the USA?  It would come under debasing the currency.

A few years ago a colleague was buying Canadian pennies at one and a half cents each. He sorted out the post-1994 ones and put them in the bank.

The earlier coins had much more than a pennysworth of copper, so those went to the USA where they were melted as scrap. Illegal to debase the currency in Canada, but not on foreign soil. He told us he got two cents US for each pre-1994 penny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement

Cutting up a nickel and mounting the image on a ring would surely come under the same laws.

[necessaryindulgencejewelry]

Using part of a coin in a piece of jewelry is not clipping. Clipping is shaving off the outer edge of a coin in order to lessen its valuable metal content while keeping the coin in circulation.

[necessaryindulgencejewelry]

Coins have been used in jewelry-making for centuries, as well as in the making of silverware (especially forks and spoons). Using the metal to make something that you are NOT passing off as currency is a totally different matter from clipping. Clipping means to shave off the edge of a coin to decrease the amount of valuable metal in it while keeping the coin in circulation.The US mint website states that it is legal to use coins to make jewelry. https://www.usmint.gov/consumer/?action=FAQ

The clipping laws go way, way back to a time when the value of the metal in the coin was directly related to the value of the coin itself. When coins were made of silver and gold, clipping decreased the value of the money (debased it) and destroyed faith in the country's monetary system, so it was treason.

[allthingsbrooklyn]

Thanks for the new work-around.

[18704d]

Many times listing a non-Native-American made item as "Southwestern" can help against the bots.

Also, not using the word "Indian" if Buffalo Nickle will work.

And it's not insane nor 'bad' for eBay to do this.

Are you aware of how many dollars the authentic Native American tribes have lost

due to counterfeiters (including China) who 'steal' their ancestral heritage and tribal designs?

Lynn

(part Cherokee)

[thingsbysaintsteven]

I'm not aware of any dollar amounts lost to bootleggers and counterfeiters, but I do market a line of licensed merchandise (not on this ID) that is copied every day and I think I'm sensitive to the problem.

My main concern is the technical one: a page that pops up which can't be navigated and that's the part I think is insane.  If I encounter a warning generated by a bot that saw a word, and I'm reasonably confident that I haven't violated a policy, I'd like to be able to make the decision to proceed and be responsible for that.

Things are getting a little better though-in 2010, I had a non-compliant listing for a toy gun that didn't have a "proper" blaze orange tip.  After it was taken down, I replaced the tip I'd used with one that I thought would pass the muster, scheduled that listing, and before I could call and ask somebody if THAT was compliant, they took down that listing which wasn't even running yet.  At least they're not doing that any more. 

[18704d]

"I'm not aware of any dollar amounts lost to bootleggers and counterfeiters,..."

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http://www.iaca.com/PDF%20Library/Letter%20to%20Secretary%20Ken%20Salazar.pdf

"In the American southwest, thousands of retailers display and sell art, crafts and other products that are of foreign origin.
The Attorneys General of Arizona and New Mexico deal with these problems daily because their tourism industries and
local economies depend on transparency and honesty in the marketing and sale of Indian and southwestern-styled goods.
In the arts and crafts sector alone, the estimated revenue loss in 2007 was $14 billion.  The U.S. Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs and the Government Accountability Office has estimated that Native Artists and craftsmen have lost billions
in lost revenue from these illicit practices."

Lynn