@creekcoyote wrote:
Anything else is likely to end up with you losing both the item and the money. Your description was clear. You gave the measurements in inches, etc. You never made a claim that it would hold more than 3 cups and were pretty clear on the rest of the pot. Pictures were good.
Wellll... the entire dimension description is this: "This fine piece measures approx. 5 1/2" tall and about 9" from the tip of the spout to the end of the handle." There is no reference to its capacity at all, not in cups, ounces or anything else. While the 5½" height measurement is helpful, it's missing any measurement of the diameter, which would give a better sense of its volume. Measuring the width across from handle to tip is a start, but you have to kind of eyeball how much of that width is really the body of the pot. I would say from the photos in the listing that it's probably no more than about 5" in diameter.
The next point of confusion is about who's counting the number of cups, and how big each one is. A 1-cup measurement is 8 fluid ounces, same as a decent-sized teacup, but if you're serving it in mugs, the volume gets used up pretty quickly, so one person's 5-cup pot might only yield another person 3 mugs of tea. As the listing didn't specify any cup capacity at all, regardless of cup size, the buyer can only guess.
Speaking as a caffeine enthusiast who's actually shaken hands with the current Lord Earl Grey (nice guy), I did some quick measuring with a definitely-larger pot that we use when serving 5-6 guests, filling it with water to what I would normally use for a full pot, and then pouring repeatedly into a measuring cup to see exactly how much volume of tea it would make. Our pot is about 6" tall and 6½" diameter (spherical, tapering above and below the beltline), and about 9¾" across handle-to-tip.
It turned out that when filled to within about an inch of the top, it yielded seven 8-ounce cups. However, when I filled one of our favorite tea-stained mugs, then dumped that into the measuring cup, I found that the mug had taken about 1 1/3 cups, around about 11 ounces. Larger mugs would drain the pot even faster.
So basically, that listing is a tough call, as far as judging what the pot really holds. I don't think a 5-cup capacity would be an unreasonable guess in this case, but again, you should at least try it and see, and be clear on whether you're counting teacups, mugs, actual 8-ounce measured cups, or whatever. At minimum, I would have measured how much liquid can be poured out of it into a measuring cup, so that you can say in the description, "This pot can brew [x] ounces of tea," and leave it up to the buyer to decide how many of his own cups or mugs can be filled from it.
So basically, I would suggest taking it back for a refund. Yes, that stinks, but at least you can get the pot back. The alternative is not getting the pot back, but either way, eBay is going to ensure that the buyer gets refunded, so retrieve the pot first, and relist it with a bit more detail. Since you know from experience that buyers will pay $99.99 for it, you might try auctioning it next time, with that as your opening price, and see if it goes for even more than that. Good luck...
