NO MORE SLOT MACHINES ON EBAY!

[watlingboy]

O.K. Mr. Nations Attic. You threw out the gauntlet. It took me less than 30 seconds to find this repro War Eagle. E-Bay item #6140799262. I'm sure I could find more but stopped looking after I found this one because you said I couldn't any. 777 is correct. Plenty of people are happy with their E-Bay slots. A lot are not.

Watlingboy

[Nations Attic]

O.K. Mr. Nations Attic. You threw out the gauntlet. It took me less than 30 seconds to find this repro War Eagle. E-Bay item #6140799262. I'm sure I could find more but stopped looking after I found this one because you said I couldn't any. 777 is correct. Plenty of people are happy with their E-Bay slots. A lot are not.

Watlingboy

That one is listed but not under the antique slot machines category. It is under the category of token machines. I don't want to sound like a preacher for eBay. I'm just saying eBay is full of good machines and of course there are bad ones as well.

[watlingboy]

Nations Attic,

I'm sorry but the heading on the Bogus machine reads " Mills War Eagle Antique Slot Machine". If you search slot machine, it comes up. And it is described to be what it is not. There is lots of the repro stuff dumped every week. Some by people who were duped and some by people who know what they are selling. Yes, good machines are also there. You have to know what you are buying but I don't see any change in the way E-Bay is regulating itself.

Watlingboy

[Ric Gandy]

Lets raise the anti a bit. I went and looked at the "War Eagle" on eBay. If you did not know that it was a reproduction, you would play hell figuring it out from the description. I just sent the seller the following email:

I am interested in buying an original 1931 Mills "War Eagle". I understand that this popular slot machine has been reproduced. What parts on your machine are original and what parts have been remanufactured? You indicate that the wooden cabinet is new. Are the castings new or old? Does this machine have an original working jackpot? Is the escalator old or new? What about the mechanism? Has this mechanism been assembled with old parts or new parts? If you had to put a percentage on it, what percentage of this machine is old and what percentage is brand new? Thanks and good luck with your auction. Ric Gandy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

It will be interesting to see what kind of response, if any, I get.

My past experiences with eBay lead me to believe that eBay will take no action against this seller. They rarely, if ever, do anything on their own. Even if they do get a complaint, their "path of least resistance" is to take the position that it is "his word against my word" and there is nothing they can (or will) do about it. I personally think eBay and most of their asinine rules are a joke, but I am willing to wait and see if they are actually serious this time or not.

I will wait and see if I get a response from this seller. The auction has 8 more days to run. If I don't get any response or get some BS response, I will file a complaint and we will see what happens. Some of the rest of you may want to do the same if you want to get involved.

Some people don't care if their "slot machine" is old or new. Royal Bell sells reproduction machines and I don't have a problem with that. They aren't trying to pass them off as original antiques. I would, however, like to see eBay get off of it's dead ass and actually do something for a change. Now if the seller in Ohio is also monitoring the Coin Op Forum, I guess the "cat is out of the bag". It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Ric Gandy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

[watlingboy]

Ric,

I will be interested in seeing also. My guess is nothing. Two years ago a guy was reported for selling repro machines and other items as original. He would put up no reserve but had 5 other id's he would bid with so he could control what his item sold for without having to pay a reserve fee and be able to say that eerything he sold was without a reserve. He was reported numerous times and nothing happened. After about a year and 20 some negatives he was removed. I saw the CEO of E-Bay interviewed one time and he said there was very little fraud on E-Bay. In his next breath he admitted that it had grown so fast that it was an impossible job to police the whole thing. Only the really bad people get booted.

Happy Holidays,

Watlingboy

[Ric Gandy]

The plot thickens. The email I sent the seller of the repro War Eagle through the eBay "ask the seller a question" feature was returned as "undeliverable". I resent it and the second email was also returned as "undeliverable". It is kind of hard to ask a question about whatever it is being sold if you can't get the question to the seller. This seller has a link in the description if you want to contact him directly. I have resent the email to the email address provided in the link. So far so good. It has not come back yet.

[777]

There probably were 100 authentic antique machines sold on eBay this year, considering I've sold 5 of them.

He said 100 were sold LAST MONTH. I would believe 100 authentic machines were sold last year. But he does a lot more E-Baying than I do so I am not going to challenge it. I was just surprised that the number was that high.

[777]

Some people don't care if their "slot machine" is old or new. Royal Bell sells reproduction machines and I don't have a problem with that. They aren't trying to pass them off as original antiques. I would, however, like to see eBay get off of it's dead ass and actually do something for a change. Now if the seller in Ohio is also monitoring the Coin Op Forum, I guess the "cat is out of the bag". It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Ric Gandy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

They don't ? I thought they (Royal Bell) marketed their crap as "remanufactured" which isn't even a word. I don't think they say anywhere that the machines are brand new.

Isn't Royal Bell the company that flooded the market with all the reproduction junk in the first place (including those butt ugly repro. Rol-A-Tops which have coins glued into place)? Even if they use the word "remanufactured" the people they are selling the machines to sure don't. Next time you are in Las Vegas, go to one of those high end nick nack stores and you will see tons of this junk being sold for over $4,000

[777]

Lets raise the anti a bit. I went and looked at the "War Eagle" on eBay. If you did not know that it was a reproduction, you would play hell figuring it out from the description. I just sent the seller the following email:

I am interested in buying an original 1931 Mills "War Eagle". I understand that this popular slot machine has been reproduced. What parts on your machine are original and what parts have been remanufactured? You indicate that the wooden cabinet is new. Are the castings new or old? Does this machine have an original working jackpot? Is the escalator old or new? What about the mechanism? Has this mechanism been assembled with old parts or new parts? If you had to put a percentage on it, what percentage of this machine is old and what percentage is brand new? Thanks and good luck with your auction. Ric Gandy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

It will be interesting to see what kind of response, if any, I get.

My past experiences with eBay lead me to believe that eBay will take no action against this seller. They rarely, if ever, do anything on their own. Even if they do get a complaint, their "path of least resistance" is to take the position that it is "his word against my word" and there is nothing they can (or will) do about it. I personally think eBay and most of their asinine rules are a joke, but I am willing to wait and see if they are actually serious this time or not.

I will wait and see if I get a response from this seller. The auction has 8 more days to run. If I don't get any response or get some BS response, I will file a complaint and we will see what happens. Some of the rest of you may want to do the same if you want to get involved.

Some people don't care if their "slot machine" is old or new. Royal Bell sells reproduction machines and I don't have a problem with that. They aren't trying to pass them off as original antiques. I would, however, like to see eBay get off of it's dead ass and actually do something for a change. Now if the seller in Ohio is also monitoring the Coin Op Forum, I guess the "cat is out of the bag". It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Ric Gandy in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Well, you must say they guy is good at creative writing .

One of the things he tells people is to check out the feedback on others selling slots. However if you check out HIS feedback you see the following:

complete reproduction, has exact duplicate machine on auction right now.

Of course, if E-Bay cared to stop the listings of reproduction machines they would have shut him down years ago.

[777]

O.K. Mr. Nations Attic. You threw out the gauntlet. It took me less than 30 seconds to find this repro War Eagle. E-Bay item #6140799262. I'm sure I could find more but stopped looking after I found this one because you said I couldn't any. 777 is correct. Plenty of people are happy with their E-Bay slots. A lot are not.

Watlingboy

That one is listed but not under the antique slot machines category. It is under the category of token machines. I don't want to sound like a preacher for eBay. I'm just saying eBay is full of good machines and of course there are bad ones as well.

When I search for slot machines, I just type "Slot Machine" in the search window. I don't bother going to a particular category.

I have a feeling that the guy selling the repro. War Eagle knows that most people search that way and put his machine in the token category to try and fly under the "current" E-Bay radar.

Apparently, it worked, if they are really trying to police the machines.