I came across this on Ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/GOLD-5-REICHSMA...Z8364627497QQcategoryZ547QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Looks to me that the dude doing the selling, just gold plated a silver coin and uses ambiguous language to fool people into thinking it is a gold coin. And by hiding the bidders names, no one can warn them. Is this legal? JonySky
That auction raises a lot of red flags. He has private feedback, bidders user ID's are private, and no written return policy. The only think he might get in trouble for, is that it has "24 Carat" in the title(keyword spaming). Charlie
Sadly, there is nothing we can do. By the time we report this, a transaction has been done. Rarely would you see scamBay cancelling a done transaction, unless the seller has been NARUed. Personally, scamBay should just not allow people with less than 50 feedbacks to do private listings and private feedbacks. If anything goes wrong, we can always contact others who did deals with him. Another innocent buyer failing hard sadly.
As for the red flags, agreed. But why would "24 carat" not be OK? Of course the 5 RM is a silver piece, and was gilded (possibly 24ct) by some third party. But the seller did mention in the description that the piece "is hard - gilded from silver 0.625 and 24 carats". Interestingly, one of the Similar Items links goes to an auction (8364998276) where the seller first claims s/he will ship "worldwide" but then specifically excludes four countries ... and even claims that this was due to "eBay rules". Hey, I have a platinum coated coin here that I will ship to any destination except the following 100 countries ... Christian
It's rather obvious from the ackward wording that the poster is not a native English speaker, so perhaps that explains his confusion between two unrelated English words - "Carat" is a weight (200 milligrams), generally used with respect to precious and semi-precious stones - a 2 carat diamond is twice as heavy as a 1 carat piece of jade. "Karat" is a measure of fineness for gold. Pure gold is 24 karat, an alloy of .41667% gold, .58333% base metals is 10 karat. Aside from the fact that both words are used in the jewelry trade, they are actually unrelated.
This is due to the fact that certain countries, namely Germany, Austria, France, and Italy, have certain legal restrictions on the sales of "Nazi" merchandise. How legally binding they are isn't clear, but most choose not to accept bidders from those countries when selling Nazi coins and stamps so they don't end up having a high bidder who can't legally complete the sale in his or her own country. As for eBay rules, at least on the Amercian site, they do generally prohibit the sale of "Nazi memoribilia," however exceptions are made for coins and stamps produced in Nazi Germany. As for the gold plating thing, well I believe in coveat emptor and such... it is generally known that this specfic coin was not originally minted in gold and that gold plating of these coins is common.
Well, there are no such "rules", neither by law nor any set up by eBay. (Also look at where the seller of # 8364627497 is located ...) My impression was that both somehow wanted to beef their auctions up - one by emphasizing the "gold" aspect, the other by pointing at non-existing restrictions. That second one apparently was canceled by the seller; hope the "winner" of the first auction knows what s/he gets. Christian
The rules only apply to sellers, not buyers, and only on the eBay sites run from those countries. But I've seen many auctions acting as if the rules applied both ways, and applied to the American site, which they do not. Perhaps they are just trying to err on the side of caution. Or perhaps they are trying to lure people in by the idea taht it is somewhat restricted, who knows? I personally don't have any problem with gold-plated coins being sold as long as they are advertised as such.
I used to think that too, until I looked it up one day in the dictionary. The use of both the c and the k are acceptable in the spelling of the word when used to describe the fineness of gold. LINK
I am basically a rube when it comes to coins, but I don't see any misrepresentation in that description. He says it is gilded! Only an absolute fool would conclude that the coin is solid gold and costs less than $5.00..
Hm, ebay.de for example does not have such rules. (There are several limitations regarding nazi propaganda, but not regarding coins from those years.) But maybe I read too much "into" the second seller's statement, and he simply does not know that his statement regarding eBay restrictions is wrong. In general, I also believe that "caveat emptor" applies to most eBay auctions. That is what I say every time somebody buys privately made "phantasy euros" and then complains about them not being the real thing ... The auction referred to in the initial message is a similar "borderline" case: Anybody who collects such coins will know, or can easily find out, that Nazi Germany did not issue any gold coins. And the description does mention silver. Could have been a little more obvious though, like in the auction title ... Christian
I don't know. I have no idea what the laws are in Germany which is where he is located. Our laws don't apply.
This is the sense I get... countries that have binding laws about the sales and distribution of "nazi propaganda" usually make exceptions for coins and stamps produced in Nazi Germany. Perhaps the seller in this case is simply not aware of the exceptions, or wants to err on the side of caution. I've noticed similar occurences on sales of replica firearms, where there's some states they won't sell to because it's too much hassle figuring out the laws of certain states. As I said before, the US has no laws at all regarding sales and distribution of Nazi memoribilia or propaganda. eBay has rules regarding such, but exempts coins and stamps from such restrictions. Anyway, I see nothing really misleading about the acution... it's pretty clear the coin is gold plated, and it doesn't take a coin expert to know that Nazi Germany never minted any gold coins. I don't really see anything wrong with the auction... to the degree any ambiguity exists I can chalk it up to English not being the seller's native language.
Shillings.. from Fiji... possibly gold-plated or the pictures are just taken under weird lighting. Believe they had silver content at the time.
Correctamundo. They are indeed cufflinks, given to be by my dad 35 years ago. I had them gold-plated 30 years ago because my tie-tacks and watch were gold. I saw a parallel with the plated German coins.
I have to agree that I dont see anything wrong with the auction he says it is gold plated so whats the problem?? De Orc
