Ebay's Worst Offerings

[Debbie]

Here's an interesting way to display a coin....

here

[HistoricCoinage]

Here's an interesting way to display a coin....

here

I think I'll have to sell all my Suffragette ones, too!

[Nick]

Here's an eBay laugh:

From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string.

Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

[Rob]

Here's an eBay laugh:

From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string.

Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches?

[Nick]

Here's an eBay laugh:

From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string.

Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches?

No. It will soon only allow specific descriptions, rather than accept the asterisk as a wildcard. For example, to search for coins from the 1860s you could just use the search string 186* (where the asterisk matches zero or more following characters). Now you will have to list every year separately.

It was also extremely useful to be able to remove items from searches. Here is an example of one of my searches (for third-party graded items):

(ngc,pcgs,cgs,anacs,ms,graded) -(pou*,sov*,gui*,£2,£1,50p,isl*,doll*,penn*,halfp*,farth*,olym*,aust*)

which will now become useless unless all of the variants can be specified in less than 100 characters.

Any search that you type into the eBay search can be saved to save you typing the same thing time after time.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Nick

[declanwmagee]

Me too!

My saved searches have taken years to perfect:

"-50 -enam* -"Isle of Man" -Diana -churchi* -fift* -197* -201* -guin* -whitm* -africa -199* -200* -shell -gold -token -20p -jers* -commem* -gibr* -198* -guer* -canad* -hamm* -1967 -fest* -£2 -1p -£5 -medal -patt* -millen* -olym* -proof -polish* -sover*"

for instance.

Wildcards a plenty.

[Generic Lad]

Yep, eBay has gone downhill recently, first requiring slabbed coins which makes bargains nearly impossible to find with US coins because a slabbed coin instantly adds $10-30 to a coin's price. Now the redesign and the wildcard searches...

However, there doesn't seem to be any other good auction site out there that doesn't charge absurd fees for buyers (like Proxibid does!) and has a decent selection of coins (like every other auction site). eBay also makes international transactions relatively painless, something that's nice because buying from someone in the UK or in Denmark is just as easy as buying from someone in the states.

[declanwmagee]

Here's an eBay laugh:

From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string.

Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches?

No. It will soon only allow specific descriptions, rather than accept the asterisk as a wildcard. For example, to search for coins from the 1860s you could just use the search string 186* (where the asterisk matches zero or more following characters). Now you will have to list every year separately.

It was also extremely useful to be able to remove items from searches. Here is an example of one of my searches (for third-party graded items):

(ngc,pcgs,cgs,anacs,ms,graded) -(pou*,sov*,gui*,£2,£1,50p,isl*,doll*,penn*,halfp*,farth*,olym*,aust*)

which will now become useless unless all of the variants can be specified in less than 100 characters.

Any search that you type into the eBay search can be saved to save you typing the same thing time after time.

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

[Peter]

I tend to search particular denominations and dates.

It shouldn't effect me.

I sometimes do a sweep through early milled and hammered (hammered have cost me a bit over the years).I still do a sweep of my favoured dealers a few times a week.

[Nick]

Here's an eBay laugh:

From 5th November you will no longer be able to use wildcards in saved searches. This will instantly render 90% of my searches useless because you still only have 100 characters to specify the search string.

Only eBay could possibly think this is a good idea.

What are the wildcards you can or could use and where do you find them? I thought you had to type in what you were looking for - say 1723 sixpence, or went down the category tree and searched within the denomination or era. Will this render specific descriptions impossible to use. Say the wildcard was 'all', then 'all new' or 'all unc' wouldn't be allowed. Sorry, confused. Saved searches?

No. It will soon only allow specific descriptions, rather than accept the asterisk as a wildcard. For example, to search for coins from the 1860s you could just use the search string 186* (where the asterisk matches zero or more following characters). Now you will have to list every year separately.

It was also extremely useful to be able to remove items from searches. Here is an example of one of my searches (for third-party graded items):

(ngc,pcgs,cgs,anacs,ms,graded) -(pou*,sov*,gui*,£2,£1,50p,isl*,doll*,penn*,halfp*,farth*,olym*,aust*)

which will now become useless unless all of the variants can be specified in less than 100 characters.

Any search that you type into the eBay search can be saved to save you typing the same thing time after time.

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

Except that you'll have to update your searches each time a novel spelling/typo appears.

[Rob]

I don't think it will affect me much. I only ever check the hammered or the reigns for a specific denomination or year. I haven't got the patience to plough through pages of Olympic 50p pieces to find the occasional rare Darwin £2.

[ski]

I haven't got the patience to plough through pages of Olympic 50p pieces to find the occasional rare Darwin £2.

[Peter]

I haven't got the patience to plough through pages of Olympic 50p pieces to find the occasional rare Darwin £2.

You will miss the neckless £2

[Rob]

I haven't got the patience to plough through pages of Olympic 50p pieces to find the occasional rare Darwin £2.

You will miss the neckless £2

Every cloud has a silver lining.

[declanwmagee]

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

Correction: I've just run into the character limit that I was assured doesn't exist! It's 300 characters.

Edited November 4, 2012 by declanwmagee

[Gary1000]

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

Correction: I've just run into the character limit that I was assured doesn't exist! It's 300 characters.

The other thing that has been annoying me for a while is the change to a 10,000 search limit. Yesterday for instance I started in Coins British at about 5.00pm and only got back to about 9.30pm Friday evening so I missing about 4 hours of new listings.

[TomGoodheart]

I forget who, but someone posted a link recently suggesting ebay is trying to get away from the 'auction' type listings. Sites like Amazon seem to have scared them (and I do wonder if they have finally realised that all their ridiculous changes over the last few years haven't actually made shilling go away) and they are wondering if people don't prefer a 'shop front' format, where you see something, it has a price and you just buy it there and then, to the 'competition' of bidding over a week. Particularly if you then lose out at the last second to someone with a sniping programme!

Of course, we all love a bargain and I suspect everyone here has a coin they bought cheap, when the competition just didn't materialise, or that was much better than the photo, much rarer than anyone else appreciated, etc.

But I've certainly found myself revisiting my usual favourite dealer sites more and more, and checking ebay less of late. The quality of coin I'm looking for is now rarely found on ebay and there seem to be even more poor quality, vaguely described crap listings than ever.

I resent paying hammer price, plus 20% commission, then 20% vat (plus postage) to traditional auction houses. And most dealers don't have enough new stock to update their listings every week, let alone every day. So ebay still has some interest to me. But whether that will still be the case in a couple of years .. I just don't know. It probably depends on how easliy I can search for and locate coins that interest me without wading through pages that don't. And I'm not sure whether (yet) more ebay changes are going to help or hinder to be honest.

[Rob]

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

Correction: I've just run into the character limit that I was assured doesn't exist! It's 300 characters.

The other thing that has been annoying me for a while is the change to a 10,000 search limit. Yesterday for instance I started in Coins British at about 5.00pm and only got back to about 9.30pm Friday evening so I missing about 4 hours of new listings.

Does that 10000 limit include all ebay items or just coins? As the current total in the coins section is about 60000 British, there surely can't have been 10000 listings in just over 4 hours. Something doesn't add up there.

Isn't the 300 character limit overkill as titles are limited to 80(?) letters if I remember right, so you can't use any more in any case? It would be better if the search results offered you the option to remove churchill crowns from a list of crown search results for example. You can exclude them by era unless someone has listed them in the wrong section, but then you can't legislate for all events.

[TomGoodheart]

It would be better if the search results offered you the option to remove churchill crowns from a list of crown search results for example.

AFAIK Rob, that you can do by putting in a " - " So a search for " Crowns -Churchill " will leave out any listing with the word "Churchill" in it. Add " -Wedding -Diana " to your search terms and you'll avoid even more offerings ...

[Rob]

It would be better if the search results offered you the option to remove churchill crowns from a list of crown search results for example.

AFAIK Rob, that you can do by putting in a " - " So a search for " Crowns -Churchill " will leave out any listing with the word "Churchill" in it. Add " -Wedding -Diana " to your search terms and you'll avoid even more offerings ...

Thanks. That seems to work more or less as a search of crowns -churchill only gave one listing of a bulk lot of 10. Very useful. -sh*te would be even better.

[declanwmagee]

-sh*te would be even better.

which is exactly what my complex, wildcard littered searches always used to do. I filtered the 60,000 down to under 20,000 with one click. Severe re-engineering required now though, and once you type out every date from 1968 to 2012, rather than using "-1968 -1969 -197* -198* -199* -200* -201*", it doesn't leave much of your 300 characters for filtering out:

-50 -enam* -"Isle of Man" -Diana -churchi* -fift* -guin* -whitm* -africa -shell -gold -token -20p -jers* -commem* -gibr* -guer* -canad* -hamm* -1967 -fest* -£2 -1p -£5 -medal -patt* -millen* -olym* -proof -polish* -sover*

[Nick]

-sh*te would be even better.

which is exactly what my complex, wildcard littered searches always used to do. I filtered the 60,000 down to under 20,000 with one click. Severe re-engineering required now though, and once you type out every date from 1968 to 2012, rather than using "-1968 -1969 -197* -198* -199* -200* -201*", it doesn't leave much of your 300 characters for filtering out:

-50 -enam* -"Isle of Man" -Diana -churchi* -fift* -guin* -whitm* -africa -shell -gold -token -20p -jers* -commem* -gibr* -guer* -canad* -hamm* -1967 -fest* -£2 -1p -£5 -medal -patt* -millen* -olym* -proof -polish* -sover*

You can save a few characters on your search string by only having one minus sign outside of parentheses containing all of the strings you want to remove.

Edited November 4, 2012 by Nick

[declanwmagee]

You can save a few characters on your search string by only having one minus sign outside of parentheses containing all of the strings you want to remove.

Thanks Nick - I'm experimenting with that at the moment! I have found that it gets in a pickle if you have numbers (i.e.dates and denominations) in your brackets, so I'm using the format above for them, and your format for words...

dear me.

[Nick]

Just got confirmation from ebay that there is no character limit, so it's a ball-ache, but it's only a ball-ache once

Correction: I've just run into the character limit that I was assured doesn't exist! It's 300 characters.

It's even worse for me, my searches are still constrained to be 100 characters or fewer.

[declanwmagee]

Oh! Wonder what's different about me? Definitely 300 here. Maybe they like the name.