Some Haze and Mold on ebay Grandagon N 115mm

[r,l, Vigurs]

The glass was described as perfect, but of course, I know, buyer beware. Appears cleanable. The mold, I hope, has not etched the glass. Appears to be around the edges of the top inner large element. Not the cemented smaller elements. The people at Grimes offered a good price for cleaning. I may well send it to them. On the other hand, it may be worth pulling out the spanners and disassembling to clean.
The seller refunded me $100. So at $250, I feel a bit better. A bit. Live and learn

[C. D. Keth]

There's a lot of lenses on ebay that are pretty sketchy like that. I think a lot of sellers don't know the difference between dirty and moldy. There are also a lot of the sellers who just say they haven't cleaned the glass for fear of causing damage and it effectively releases them from having to know the difference or make any evaluation of the glass at all.

[Jody_S]

The last lens I bought was clearly described as 'no fungus'. I got the lens and saw obvious fungus marks.... upon opening, I saw that the seller had scraped off the fungus. So, technically correct, the lens had no fungus, but it was completely unusable due to large portions of the coating being etched by fungus. What to do? Yes I can make a claim through paypal and get a refund, but I will still have to pay to return the lens, which due to Canada Post's ridiculous international parcel rates, amounts to more than what I originally paid for it. The seller refunded the lens cost but not the original (expensive) shipping. And I have another useless chunk of glass sitting on a shelf (I polished off the remaining coatings, I now have [another] uncoated Tessar).

I'm getting more and more of these, so much so that I've almost completely stopped taking chances on what looks like a good buy on fleabay. Including lenses bought from supposedly reputable European dealers with feedback in the thousands, and when I get the lens I find the condition is far worse than described. Well, it's not like I needed more lenses, so I guess there is a bright side after all.

I think it's a matter of abusive or unfair ebay policies, or rather their effect on sellers a few years down the road. The only people left selling are those who view abusive returns and scams as part of the cost of doing business, and are much more likely to engage in similar behavior themselves as a result, just to 'make a buck' by any means necessary. Ebay turned a once significant buyer/seller reporting system ('feedback') into meaningless gibberish and blackmail, and pissed off their entire base of honest sellers in the process.

[C. D. Keth]

Ebay turned a once significant buyer/seller reporting system ('feedback') into meaningless gibberish and blackmail, and pissed off their entire base of honest sellers in the process.

It is a shame. I used to buy and sell on ebay quite a bit when I was a more active tabletop gamer. Fast forward to now, I think my last transaction there was probably 8 or 9 years ago.