05-18-2018 02:24 PM
I enjoy getting the occasional note from a buyer telling me how they are going to use my item. This week I got two messages. The first was from someone telling me about a website called something like "findagrave" and telling me I had a photo listed for sale that I should scan into the link she pointed me to where my great grandfather already had a photo put in by someone, and that I should add the photo of my great grandmother. The other was a note telling me that an advertising pamphlet that I've had listed for 7 years (and finally moved to my other ID where listings go to die) was going to be used in a book that they were writing about Cleveland. The pamphlet was from the early 1900s and was from a spice and extract company based in Cleveland. The pamphlet was in my grandmother's things when we closed up her home in Ashtabula, OH.
I've also had folks write notes like "I see your return address is San Pedro, CA, do you know so and so?" In one case I did actually know the person they were asking about. And late last year I sold an item and the address looked familiar -- it was from the retirement community where we have put ourselves on the waitlist, and we're going to have coffee with the buyer later this year when we vacation in the area.
05-18-2018 04:27 PM
Several times I receive messages that the slide l sold was of them or of a family member. Once I was threatened by a person for having a pic up of there Mon and Dad and I must have stolen it from them. Well because of the threat I made them buy it and at a premium. The family owned a gas station and a tourist had taken the picture passing through.
05-18-2018 04:31 PM
My items have been in magazines, cookbooks, a Broadway show, a museum display and a movie. I regularly supply weddings, showers, birthday and retirement parties. I hear a lot of stories. One husband has bought a gift for his wife from me every Christmas for over a decade.
the stories are one of the best parts of my job.
05-18-2018 05:27 PM
I've sold a bunch of things to museums.
But the funniest thing was at the shop - I had bought an old oak post office wall and window, door, grates, etc., with nice lettering on the glass and such. The person I sold that setup to was going to make a bed headboard and frame out of it. All I could think of was it must have been Cliff from Cheers! I like repurposing, but I thought that went a bit off the beaten path.
Things that make you go hmmmmm ......
05-18-2018 05:48 PM
05-18-2018 05:54 PM
My best email was a picture of the buyer's granddaughter wearing a dress my mom had made for me in the 1950s. I tired to get my daughter to wear it when she was little, but she refused!
05-18-2018 06:02 PM
A program belonging to my parents, autographed by Buck Owens in the 1960's, was purchased by someone who wanted it for the Buck Owens Museum in Bakersfield. I was glad the buyer included the note to let me know where it was going.
05-18-2018 06:30 PM
I received a physical letter from a guy one time who lived somewhere in the Dakotas. He sent me photos of him riding around on a bike - touring the Badlands or something. Was kind of creepy but endearing.
Another time got Japanese candy from a Japanese buyer who returned something.
Another time an Eastern European (Poland? or somewhere in the Yugoslavia area) sent me a link to him playing a guitar he built with the pickups I sold him in a blues bar in some town in his homeland.
05-18-2018 09:39 PM
I get a thank you message every once in awhile from buyers telling me they've been getting compliments on the jewelry I've sold them . One incident does stick out though . I sold a necklace to a woman who lived in Hawaii one time . She contacted me to say she really loved it . A few weeks later she sent me a special charm that was made in Hawaii with a little coral flower . The note said '' I just thought you could use this '' . It was very nice of her . 🙂 tulips
05-19-2018 02:09 AM
Buyer bought some nice pants for $25..pictures show some extra design threading by belt loops. Buyer files 'not as described' and I'm forced paying a total of $14 shipping there and back reimbursement for an item I bought for $1.50.....reason 'there's loose threads on loops so I can tell it's too worn'...forced to accept return and loose hard earned money. That was fun.
05-19-2018 06:01 AM
Just can't let a fun positive thread lie? Attitude is everything.
05-19-2018 08:05 AM
When I first read the Title of this thread,
I thought it was about "fun" notes (in a sarcastic negative way.)
fwiw,
Lynn
05-19-2018 08:16 AM
I sold a red velvet dress to a woman who needed it ASAP for her daughter to wear when she was going to sing a solo at the Christmas pageant.
I was in Canada back then and she in the US, so she asked me to send it Fedex express (or whatever the name of their fastest service was back then) and sent me the funds by Billpoint (this was a long while ago!)
She got the dress in time to add a fake fur collar and cuffs and everything went fine.
I got a package in the mail several days later, containing a little box of chocolates, a nice letter, and 2 photographs of her daughter on the stage in her enhanced red velvet dress, singing her heart out.
It was really a lovely gesture, I thought. The early eBay days seem so different from today!
05-19-2018 08:51 AM
@city*satins wrote:I sold a red velvet dress to a woman who needed it ASAP for her daughter to wear when she was going to sing a solo at the Christmas pageant.
I was in Canada back then and she in the US, so she asked me to send it Fedex express (or whatever the name of their fastest service was back then) and sent me the funds by Billpoint (this was a long while ago!)
She got the dress in time to add a fake fur collar and cuffs and everything went fine.
I got a package in the mail several days later, containing a little box of chocolates, a nice letter, and 2 photographs of her daughter on the stage in her enhanced red velvet dress, singing her heart out.
It was really a lovely gesture, I thought. The early eBay days seem so different from today!
Nowadays you'd be more likely to get the enhanced dress back after it was used.