ebay junk

[Dave the plumber]

 I spent a little while cruising on ebay artillery categories the other night, and I got pretty pissed off at all the fake, no other word for it, bullshit crap that people are passing off for artillery tools. I mention this because another thread here started talking about certain ebayers and their fake made up crap.
     I'm no expert,  and I gotta admit I learned the hard and expensive way years ago, that all these artillery worms, tow hooks, ring gauges, linstocks, fuze wrenches, mortar tongs, gimlets, and a host of other tools are almost all, 100% fake. And my apologize to the great state of Pennsylvania, but there is someone up there, a  blacksmith,  mass producing this trash and selling it to a host of unscroupulous dealers on ebay taking good peoples good money. Maybe I'm pissed cause I learned the hard way myself.... I feel for the people getting ripped off. Once they find out it's trash, they might decide to not bother collecting and give it up and not care to pass down history and knowledge to others. That's a sad fact.... I wouldn't blame them
  And all these chain shot, expanding bar shot, bar shot etc. is all junk too.  And I see it going for big money week after week after week.
  Anything with US stamped in a wood handle is nothing more than firewood from ebay, too. They might as well embellish it some more and say it was recovered from Gettysburg too, while they are at it !!
    Forgive me for venting, but I hate outright crooks. I know good dealers that have come up unwittingly with this stuff, and when informed, take it off their sites or tables at a show, without hesitation. Good for them !!
  Anybody with a tool they want help identifying, someone here, myself included, would be happy to help advise on the authenticity of it, if we can. I say 'if we can' because unfortunately there is no super reference book on artillery tools, they appear in books in drips and drabs. Even Jones' fantastic fuze book has quite a few 'not real' fuze wrenches featured in the book, and he marks them as unidentified  [ sorry Woodenhead ! ] The best reference is the Mordecai drawings which are very, very accurate which are featured in Ripley's Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War. Also, believe it or not, old Bannerman's catalogues.....

[Pete George]

  For several years, I was an unpaid volunteer Civil War Relic Authenticator for E-Bay as part of their Enhanced Member Reporting team (reporting the bogus stuff, which E-bay actually did frequently "remove")... until they ended it because it was costing them too much in sales-commissions.

  Thanks for saying well what needed to be said, Dave.

Best regards,
Pete

[pipedreamer65]

Yeah, we battled that junk for years on the old, out of business fake forums ran by Bob B.  (NVRHA).  We used to contact sellers and either educate or shame them, we would message bidders and buyers and advise them, we reported to ebay, we shouted from the roof tops.  We played detective and dug up all kinds of information on the people that sold the crap.  Slowly, ebay took away every single tool we had to combat that junk, shielding the forgers and making the bidder an anonymous name made up of letters and asterisks. 

[scottfromgeorgia]

True. I remember many of those fights. Yet crooks like revwarcannonballs survived it, and keep posting thousands of dollars of faked relics every year.

[CarlS]

Here is part of a group in a collection recently picked up.  I was scared to ask him what he paid for any of it.

[emike123]

1 out of 6 ain't bad (thinking optimistically). 

I don't really know what to do about all this except offer this forum and like ones for education.  I don't want to take on the monitoring liability to make this place a clearing house for stuff but am personally happy to answer specific questions from members who have legitimate concerns about things. 

As for ebay, I stopped reporting things many months ago when there was a disgustingly bogus cannon listed in the original period items category that several of us reported but nothing happened and some poor soul got stuck with a multi thousand dollar Confederate "Leech and Rigdon" cannon.  Clearly ebay cares more about their 10% cut than truth and justice so caveat emptor.  They can go back to their online flea market roots shilling Pez dispensers.  If they allow the sale of clearly bogus stuff despite reports, I am confident market forces will someday prevail and their business model will max out at some point.

[pipedreamer65]

Agreed with your sentiment.  It's basically an online fleamarket.  Gotta pick through the shyt and if you don't know what your doing, you can pay for your education the hard way.  I have given up on it but if someone needs personal assistance I am glad to help.

[pipedreamer65]

This is fake

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cannon-Ball-Grips-Body-Solid-Free-Shipping/192292223115?hash=item2cc582788b:g:FnkAAOSwwvBZpaxR     

[speedenforcer]

lol

[relicrunner]

So which one in Carl's group of 6 is good?? 

[alwion]

not cannon related, but have been sold a misrepresented CS bayonet, got my money back. Tried to sell a car, and got several offers on it to buy, including from a buyer 1000 miles away ($1500 camaro ffs) who had 5 feedback, and 3 of them were for selling stolen titles which he bought the car, cancelled the payment after getting the title, and then reselling the "stolen" car, and he had been doing it over a year. no they will not delete a bad seller. also got scammed on $200 worth of dewalt batteries from a 250 positive feedback seller, who then scammed 25 people the same week, and 4 months later hes still selling, with 25 negatives. gotta really watch auctions, there are people work these harder than a regular job, and have worked accounts for years to get a final big score. sorry where its all went. Hard enough just dealing with honest but unknowledgeable people

[alwion]

www.ebay.com/itm/antique-civil-war-cannon/302514380956?hash=item466f43209c:g:SI4AAOSwa81Z~kLm


ready to fire, all redone antique cannon. I wouldn't want to be within miles of this if they fire it

[scottfromgeorgia]

What in the world is that thing?

[CarlS]

Probably an accident waiting to happen.

Surprised it is not caught by the eBay police with the comment that it is ready to fire.