@goombahcat wrote:
The marking on the piece was faint but since I buy these types of items, I recognized it. So, when a seller is told about the authenticity of an item isn't it *their* "responsibility" to be honest?! I think I am done posting on this forum because it seems most (not all) of the people replying to my question spend too much time trying to "school" people and not providing actual solutions....and don't seem to really care about honesty.
The thing is, we all have our areas of expertise, but eBay does not. Thus it really boils down to you and the seller, and whether the seller knows it's a reproduction and chooses to not say so, or doesn't know it's a reproduction, in which case you can try to educate him. At that point he can either believe you or not. eBay is not going to get into the middle of that to determine who's right and who isn't.
Realistically, I think most sellers want to know what they're selling and are not planning to try to fool buyers, because that's probably not going to last long or end well. As soon as the buyer runs into someone who points out what the seller is hoping the buyer will not find out, the buyer may come back to try and return the item, or otherwise make life difficult for the seller.
In your case, it sounds like the seller is either determined to sell a reproduction without saying so, or simply didn't believe you. Either way, one other point you might consider is that prospective buyers may also know the item, and thus it's going unsold because most people who are interested in that item (whatever it may be) have at least a passing knowledge of what they're looking at.
So what this all boils down to is caveat emptor, as someone else already said, but keep in mind also that most buyers are smart enough to avoid buying a reproduction. This situation will probably take care of itself.
