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Old 08-04-20, 01:56
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Posts: 3,384
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Hi Patrick.

With the exception of one installation for what I recall was some model of Sherman that was advertised as such, the other show up by analysis and in some instances emailing sellers to ask key questions.

I peaked about two years ago with 14 different searches on eBay for 19-Set stuff. It never used to be like that but I suspect eBay seriously dumbed down their search engine to provide more product hits for their growing eBay Store Merchants. At one time you used to be able to employ very precise searches and get exactly what you were looking for. Those days are gone, so I went with a shotgun approach to searches. You end up with a lot of emails in your in box and a number of duplicate or more results, but you also find bits you would otherwise miss completely.

I look for frequent items from the same seller and that is when I start to suspect what they are doing. A mint transceiver shows up. Then a psu, then other bits that could only be coming from a kit. You can then contact them and ask if they have ever run across something obscure that should be in the kit, like the bags of hardware, packing slips, content lists, or the shipping boxes or crates. These are things many sellers do not recognize the value/importance of and toss outright or set aside and do not advertise. You nearly always get answers that confirm what is going on. The other consideration is many sellers do not want to deal with very heavy items to ship. They would rather part a kit out into smaller, manageable bits and perhaps increase. Their profits.

I have recently cut back my 19-Set searches. I think I just have four left. I have now found nearly all of what I had been looking for, but have also become suspicious eBay Searches can be easily hacked when you are active on their site. I am finding more and more results showing up for searches that have nothing even close in common to what I am looking for, and the sellers being listed are nearly always in Eastern European countries. Bulgaria is the worst. I stepped completely away from searching for military pocket watches as I was getting dozens and dozens of results for genuine WW2 German Nazi pocket watches that were so fake it was absolutely laughable and all from ‘different’ sellers in Bulgaria.

Anyway, Patrick, I think I have totally highjacked this thread now. I guess my key comment is you really need to be a detective these days to figure out what sometimes goes on on eBay.

Cheers for now,

David
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