Thread: did I get taken?

I recently picked up a supposed J.A. Hanckels Solingen straight. The box is old and is stamped as such. However, neither the blade or scale have any identifying stamp on them. Here is the link
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...:X:RTQ:US:1123,

Any comments woulkd be appreciated.
Thanks
Al

Well....without a stamp there is no way to say you have a Henkels. The boxes are interchanged all the time. Ill let others chime in.

I would be hard pressed to say is was without the stamp and the tang design doesn't look right to the ones I have seen in the past. Anyone else?

That happened to me once too. You have to make sure the tang is stamped unless you absolutely trust the source and they have a viable explanation.

Jordan

Without a tang stamp I'd give you a better than 90% chance that you have been duped.
EDIT: the tang has no visible wear, so the stamp is not worn away. and companies like henckels would have a stamp. so make that 100%. Also it doesn't look like a henckels.

you certainly paid quite a bit for a henckels box and unknown razor. i wouldn't say you got taken, as the seller could claim ignorance and their pictures clearly showed all tang markings (or the lack of them). plus the feedback you left indicates you were perfectly happy with the seller and the way they described their razor.
it may still turn out to be a decent razor, but it needs some restoration work first.

just noticed you've been a member here for several months - there are plenty of henckels pictures on the forums...

Don't look like a Henckel to me. I'd ask for my $ back if I were you. The seller mis-represented.

You'll notice the foto of the razor had the razor closed so you couldn't see the tang so you had to take his word for it. There was a guy selling a supposed DD where the scales were a DD lifetime but also the tang said nothing at all. I emailed him and told him the razor was not a bresduck and the scales had been switched. I never checked to see if he changed his auction.

Run a search under Gillette in his store. The Gillette Executive he has listed for 200 or best offer used to be closer to 400...

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

the foto of the razor had the razor closed so you couldn't see the tang so you had to take his word for it

I'm not trying to defend the seller, but there are 3 photos, one with the razor closed and 2 more front and back open and the detail is more than 90% of ebay auctions give you.
I'm just trying to look at this as objectively as I can. The way I see the transaction is: the seller listed ridiculously high price and 'Make me an offer' option - certainly not unusual for ebay - a lot of sellers have no idea about the value of the items they sell. The seller also misrepresented the razor going with the box description, but I don't see this as something unusual for a seller that doesn't even know the value of the item. The buyer clearly thought the asking price was too high and offered 1/2 of it, which the seller accepted. Then the buyer was happy on receipt and left a positive feedback, but then he thought the item may actually not be as advertised. It looks to me like neither the seller nor the buyer had a very good idea about the razor, nevertheless they agreed on a transaction that both seemed to be happy about. It's hard for me to put a blame on the seller - what they do is also consistent with being ignorant, so when in doubt I give everybody the benefit of the doubt.

I think you should contact the seller and explain that it doesn't seem to be a henckels razor. If I'm the seller and want to be nice I'll take it back as long as you cover the shipping both ways and the ebay fees that I got charged. But if I don't want to deal with all the hassle I'll just tell you that the transaction is complete and you had all information before making me an offer to determine what value you place on the razor.

Originally Posted by ZiggyDeath

Run a search under Gillette in his store. The Gillette Executive he has listed for 200 or best offer used to be closer to 400...

It's a reasonable strategy when you don't know the value of something to start as high as you think it may be reasonable (e.g. seeing another gillette sell for that much and you have no idea what in particular was so valuable) if it doesn't sell you can try again or if you get sick of being charged the listing fees you can lower the price.
We've all seen the other spectrum of the market too - somebody sells a $20,000 item for $5. Nothing wrong with not trying to be on the short end of a deal, the seller is certainly bearing the cost of this strategy (items don't move, he pays listing fees...)