Saving eBay coin photos (new way)

There seems to have been a fairly recent (last few weeks) change to many eBay listings that makes it harder to save coin photos ... I'm sure I'm not the only one that likes to do this.

It used to be that you could simply right click on an image and select "Save Image As ...", but they've changed something so that option no longer appears most of the time.

You can always just take a screenshot and load it into your favorite image editor (GIMP for me), but if you want to save the image directly here's a way that works in FireFox.

1) Right click on the photo and select "Inspect" (bottom menu choice), which will show you the HTML of the thing you clicked on (see example below)

2) The top line of the HTML should contain src="https://.../s-1500.jpg" or something similar

3) Right click on that https: URL and select "Open Link in New Tab"

4) Go to new tab and save image as before

5) To save additional images (e.g. other side of coin), click on it on the listing page to switch to it as normal, then repeat above "Inspect" etc process.

As always these step-by-step descriptions sound worse than they are - it only takes a few seconds to do.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I also take screen shot photos with my iPhone of eBay listings of very rare Sicilian and Italian coins that are much better quality than the grainy photos in the Krause catalog. I then organize the coin photos in the photo albums feature of the phone.

 

@Heliodromus.....Thanks for this, I thought it was me doing something wrong as one of my Indian sellers changed and I just couldn't copy the photos as before..
This works well, much appreciated.

 

The same should work on other browsers. On chrome it's "view source" if I remember correctly. If the image url isn't immediately visible in the source code, just use the find function (CTRL/F) to search for "jpg". In most cases there will be more than one.

Copyright laws may apply.

 

..its like the sellers can use the listing for another coin i reckon....i've a few ask me if it was ok if my coin disappeared off the listing...NP...has long as i got what i was supposed to..

 

Thanks - this is great - I had noticed that I was not always able to save the pictures as well. I do save pictures of auctions I bid on so I can refer to the pricing if similar coins (or even the same coin) turns up in future auctions.

 

Interestingly, I was on eBay just now and was able to download one of my own images the old-fashioned way in Firefox, right click> save image as. What ever the op experienced isn't universal.

 

I use a Mac and chrome. I just tried saving seven images of ancient coins from seven different sellers and all worked as usual with "Save image as".

 

That's interesting ... 7/7 sounds more than luck, but I don't see why the computer/browser would make a difference.

I'd be curious if you could try this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/203781551544?hash=item2f7253b5b8:g:k10AAOSwnz9h1XwL

On Linux, with both FireFox 95.0 and Chrome 96.0, there's no "Save image as".

 

Hmm... It saves for me when I click on the image (to make it full screen) and then right click, save image as. I'm also on Chrome 96.0

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

It worked as usual for me.

Yes. That's how it works.



For example, I saved this very rapidly.

 

Actually that works for me too (from full screen photo), but can't do it from the basic listing photo, which is all that some listings have, such as this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125081018509

 

Right. That is a problem for me, too. I did not solve it. I was able, with some searching, to find a clickable link to the original obverse image in the source code and then save that. But, I didn't find the reverse image. I await a clever solution to this problem.

 

I'm not sure if it'll be the same on a Mac, but on Linux the "Inspect" (not page source) method does work for Chrome too. You can click on either obv/rev with the HTML window still popped up, and it'll update the link.

 

Okay. I went to
View, Developer, Inspect elements
and the upper sub-window came up "elements." It had many lines, but the images were in links that were relatively easy to find and clicking on the link made them come up full-size in savable form.

Why does eBay make it so difficult?

 

It's a lot easier to just to take a screenshot than to inspect the HTML. Same image resolution, 72ppi.

 

The trouble with screenshots is that if the seller has tightly cropped the photo, then you'll get the arrows overlaying the edges of the coin. I prefer clean photos since I save them in a reference database.

For example, here's the above coin via screenshot.



Inspecting the HTML takes literally 2-3 sec. It sounds as if it may be worse on the Mac, but in both FireFox and Chrome on Linux there's no searching the HTML for the image link since it's right there in the inspect window.

 

So when you scroll through seller's images in a listing, and the images are cropped closely, you get this preview image with the arrows cutting into it:


Then when you click on the preview image, you get the original image sans arrows:



And then when you right click the original image, you get the option to save the image:



Easy peasy, same as it's always been. No need for screen shots or to inspect HTML.

 

You need to read the whole thread.

There are cases where clicking on the preview image does nothing, and your choices are screenshot (with arrows) or the other approach.

It may depend on your browser and operating system, but the example link I posted above is one that behaves this way.




The only option here is to right-click which gives you the "Inspect" option, as discussed.



For sure there are *some* listings that behave the way your example does, and of course a simple "Save image as ..." works in those cases.