Thread: eBay just dropped my auction due to ivory scales

"You have listed ivory or carved bone razor. With limited exception to pre-1900 items containing a very small amount of ivory (less than 5), ivory is not permitted on the site."

The razor has scales that I listed as bone or ivory, I'm not sure which. They were most certainly made before 1900, and I bought them on eBay in the first place. They do not comprise less than 5% of the razor. This is the second time I've had to stop selling something that is perfectly legal on eBay because their policy is more restrictive than the law of the country I've limited sales to.

They are well within their rights. It's just frustrating.

I have a friend who listed them as bone. They hit him twice, took down ALL of his listings for 3 days, said once more, banned for life! I see them all the time on there. If they actually had someone looking (who knows what to look for) they ALL would be taken down. Other people report this to Ebay, I think! Perhaps sellers who have been admonished? "If I cannot, you cannot" type of deal. Sad! Put it in the classifieds here!

I will. I just hate to pop up on the classifieds all the time. I see it as a free service here that I shouldn't abuse, whereas I'm paying my own way for the service on eBay.

This makes me wonder - if bone is banned, why are other animal products that involve slaughtering the animal allowed? Like anything made of fur. Or badger brushes?

It has happend to me, also. Now I list all bone as COW BONE in the title. In the description you can say you are not sure what the material is but Republican Bone comes to mind.

In that situation I list the scales as "natural" material. That is the work around for ivory, bone or tortoise.

Originally Posted by DFriedl

I will. I just hate to pop up on the classifieds all the time. I see it as a free service here that I shouldn't abuse, whereas I'm paying my own way for the service on eBay.

There are a few guys who almost always have razors for sale in our Classifieds. I've never seen that as an abuse. Since we so often recommend to new users that they avoid ebay and look at our Classifieds, it seems the right thing to do to list there. When I finally get off my butt and cull the herd, I'll have 15 or 20 blades and will sell them all here. It's never occurred to me that that would be an abuse, unless I wasn't selling good stuff.

As far as I know, bone is not banned. For future auctions, substitute the words "natural material" instead of Ivory. dont even put the word ivory anywhere in the auction. I swear, I think there are people who are paid to just sit there and look through auctions with keyword searches, reporting as they spot them.

The classifieds here are a service, It's the best place to buy shave ready razors for newbies. It's one of the many things that make this forum special. Ebay is a crap shoot for razors unless you know what to look for, especially for the inexperienced.

Eboy has come under a lot of fire the last few years for selling items that are verboten. If someone sees the post and reports it they will act whether it is the genuine item or not. I really can't blame them because they could wind up being held responsible in some parts of the world. They need the defense they act when notified to protect themselves.

Even though ivory from certain animals has been banned since the 70s it keeps surfacing and of course everyone claims it's preban but most is not and that is just a fact.