Upside Down in a Hospital Ward and Other Huge Shocks to the eBay Masterspy System
Well, what a month! No dosh, eBay bidding famine continues seemingly without end…. Sadly, once again this month I failed to win the Euromi££ions. I am going to phone up and complain if I don’t win next week. It must be my turn by now, because according to the blurb they have created more lottery millionaires than the entire population of China. Work?… Horrendous, say no more. My footie team are playing like a bunch of one-legged strangers after 15 pints the night before, so say no more about that either.
Mrs Masterspy is keeping the pressure on re the new 3 piece suite, despite me fighting a valiant and heroic rearguard action of Rourke’s Drift proportions. The old suite seems perfectly fine to me, readers – it’s almost new guv’nor, so it is, on the life of my 15 snotty kids. Your very own eBay Masterspy is being slowly dragged ever closer to the door of uber-expensive massive furnishing emporium, Arighi Bianchi for yet another unnecessary house-related purchase. And if the above is not sufficient to make you reach for the Kleenex, both the fruits of my loins have been in hospital at various stages of the month (not to mention my only remaining aged auntie). Panic ye not, dear readers, all appears well now on the children’s health front at least (the auntie is a bit more long term, sadly)….. Inevitably I have lost a bit more of what remains of my hair, though (and I can’t afford to lose any more, believe me). To top it off, it is now, at long last, “proppoh piggin keld innit” as we say in the North.
Ed. Translated from the vernacular common in some poorer (and sadly benighted) parts of Northern England, such as Leeds…. “I say gentlemen, it is desperately cold this fine morning, is it not?” and this is usually replied to in the following fashion “By God and by the Queen’s beard sir, so it is!”
Ok, enough of my travails…..
I thought I would do things upside down this month as I have had an upside down time myself, so here goes with the first of this year’s….
Mad Items of the Month!
Well, first a return to an old favourite (eBay Masterspy never sleeps and never misses anything, please remember this fact, shill bidders). Remember the “Reproduction 17th Century Style Garrotte Stool” which was for sale back in the summer for £1900? It was surprisingly unsold (hang on a moment while I drag my tongue forcibly back out of my cheek), but undaunted however, the seller kept relisting it (there’s nowt like a spot of perseverance is there, dear reader?). It was withdrawn during its current run this month as “Item no longer available”. I think we can safely translate this as sold “off ebay”. The price, well, of course I can’t say, but the starting price had been reduced to £900, so I think it may be assumed to be somewhere below this. Go on, admit it, if you had been still watching it readers, you would have happily parted with £800+ for this historic (not) artefact, had you but known that it was going to be reduced to such a reasonable value for money price. Gutted, aren’t you, readers? If only we hadn’t had a new kitchen I could have gone for this one. Damn.
Guitars, I hear you ask? Love ‘em, listening to one moanin’ an’ wailin’ away as I type, in fact. Can I play ‘em?.. Regrettably not (that’s another mega-lucrative alternative career passed me by, not to mention the sad lack of large packs of gorgeous groupies and associated stacks of good strong whacky baccy in eBay Masterspy’s life this past 40 years L). Now, I have heard of 4 string guitars, 6 string guitars and even 12 string guitars (How many fingers do you need??? How many you got???). Anyway, seller skicom unluckily(?) failed to attract any bids for the 7 (yeah man, wow, like seven strings, man) stringer he put on ebay for a mere £630.59. Wonder why.
Finally this month 1aelphick auctioned one of the past CW club badges. Why is that a mad item I hear you ask, incredulity etched in your voice? Somebody paid a completely OTT £9.40 for it, that’s why. Mind you, it does seem to come complete with 3 wrinkly fingers (see picture).
The Serious Stuff
It seems to have been Baluster Vase Month this month, readers. Back at the beginning of the month seller gemmatobutt (you know me and the id names thing, does this mean Gemma has a tomato-shaped and coloured butt? I do hope not, Gemma) eBayed a lovely pair of blue 10¾” TEMPLE 2929 balusters. To my considerable surprise they received only one bid and so went for the starting price of £100.00. Now, that’s what I call a bargain. Well done there, buyer. You sneaked in there like a thief in the night.
MIKADO 2929 baluster vases
Another pair of similarly sized balusters in dark blue PERSIAN 2882 was sold by potteryvillage-dot after a more normal 24 bid battle for £229.00. Still pretty good value for money I think in this pattern.
PERSIAN 2882 baluster vases.
There were also 2 separate baluster vases in FLIES/NEW FLIES. First up was myngswyk (what’s up, had an “unfortunate experience” with vowels and not too keen on ‘em anymore?) who listed a NEW FLIES 11″ baluster in light blue as a BIN/ONO. It was bought for £265.00, roughly 10% less than the initial asking price had been. Just had a thought readers, perhaps I should run a competition in the blog. All you have to do is email in a proper word in the English language using only the letters in myngswyk plus any additional vowels you wish.
NEW FLIES baluster vase
On the other hand especiallyceramics auctioned an 11″ FLIES 2732 baluster in an unusual pink lustre. Would bidders warm to this hot pink vase? Errrrrr, no. 7 bidders did make 12 bids, but they topped out at £67.89. No doubt this was a disappointing result for the seller. Was it disappointing, seller? Got yourself a bargain, buyer? Let me know. Virtually £200 difference.
FLIES 2732 baluster vase
By way of complete contrast to baluster vases, happy.snapper (a photographer perhaps, or maybe more worryingly, someone who likes biting customers – I hope not) auctioned a Ringmaster bell which stood to attention for £110.00. I love these table bells, but unfortunately I only have one of the set. Anybody out there got the whole set? Send the website a picture. I am sure Harvey would publish it.
Ringmaster bell
Stop Press News… da dit dit da da dit dit….
OMG. The white flag is hanging dejectedly and limply over Rourke’s Drift. We have bought the dreaded 3 piece suite! Mind you, Mrs Masterspy negotiated the price down at the last minute by a startling £600 i.e. below the January sale price – she’s vicious. You should have seen her little jet black gimlet eyes boring deep deep deep into the poor salesman’s soul. It was a deeply frightening and unsettling experience. I don’t want to worry you, sellers, but I intend to let her loose on you in future to do all my CW negotiating. Be afraid, be very, very afraid. In fact it might be safer just to switch to selling dodgy motors or fake CDs or something she isn’t interested in while you still can. Note to self….. Don’t get divorced. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
Stop Press News 2… da dit dit da da dit dit….
OMG. Aaaghhh. Back to financial Armageddon. My youngest daughter has just announced her intention to get married this spring. Guess what, she told us about 30 minutes after we had ordered the aforementioned 3 piece. The flying fickle finger of fate strikes again and kicks me right in the wallet. Nearly had a coronary let me tell you. I’m going to be down to buying boxes of matches rather than CW on eBay shortly. Hey ho. Sigh. Better have a word with my bank manager.
With a heavy heart, or is it a leaping heart (make up your own minds and when you have, tell me, ‘cos I can’t work it out) back to the CW. I liked the 10″ cylinder vase in TEMPLE 3026 in ivory and teal green frieze auctioned by naughtynouveau. If you are into chinoiserie, I reckon this one ticks most of the boxes and so did 6 ebayers, who bid this one up to a still reasonable £108.99. The ivory and teal green really go well together, don’t they? Did you buy it? Is it as stunning an example of chinoiserie as it looks on screen?
TEMPLE 3026 vase
One of the surprises of the month for me was a coffee set for 6 (minus cream jug) in MIKADO 2881 sold by (a no doubt extremely delighted) quantockman, which was fought over back and forth by 2 bidders, only for a third bidder to jump in and highjack the spoils with a huge bid of £440.75. Bet they were both gutted, don’t you?
MIKADO 2881 AMORY coffee set
The chinoiserie pattern which currently sells for the highest prices is CHINALAND. In this case a 10″ trumpet-shaped vase in the orange ground pattern number 2948 was put up for sale by dealsanmore. 6 bidders share my liking for this pattern and went as far as £678.36.
CHINALAND 2948 trumpet vase
Does a spot of HANDCRAFT float your boat? Well, I was taken by the VELOX bowl in NEW DELPHINIUM 3526 Buy-it-Nowed by wallsco2 for £165.00. Now this seller can often price way too high in my experience, but this item was priced reasonably in my opinion.
NEW DELPHINIUM 3526 VELOX bowl
Another nice HANDCRAFT piece was the lovely CLEMATIS 3525 7½” jug vase put up by sportsman14a and snapped up for £112.01. Striking or what?
CLEMATIS 3525 HANDCRAFT jug vase
How about a bit of Floral Embossed? So hows about an item I rarely see or mention, wall pockets? Seller mrpp355 auctioned a pair of 6½” wall pockets in HYDRANGEA. This is possibly the prettiest embossed pattern to my eye and in this case was bid to £73.00.
HYDRANGEA Floral embossed wall pockets
Good value those wall pockets if you can’t afford the next item. Mind you, it turns out that nobody could, because the reserve was not reached when trampuss tried but failed to sell his JAZZ 3353 7″ jug vase. The price rose to a nose-bleedingly dizzying £1650.00, but not nose-bleedingly high enough for trampuss obviously.
JAZZ 3353 jug vase
oscarpops is nothing if not devilish cunning, dear readers. She had a pair of Parkland 3524 8″ vases in shape 457. She sold them both separately to finish 2 minutes apart. The first one to finish realised £547.00 and having whetted the appetites of ebayers the world over, the second one easily topped that, reaching £627.00. Lovely vases, these. Lucky lucky buyers.
Parkland 3524 vase S457
Not content with these 2 triumphs oscarpops also listed a 9″ vase in TURKISH 3050. Again, a lovely vase, in a shouldered tapering form. 10 bidders thought this was worth a punt and it reached a pretty high £411.00. I really liked it. I have a couple of pieces of TURKISH, but this one is exceptional.
TURKISH 3050 vase
Two striking pieces auctioned at Fielding’s in Stourbridge this month found their way straight onto eBay. First up was akmrjb, who offered his recent capture a 14″ tall jug in Hedgerow 3862 which (although restored on the rim) managed to reach £176.99.
Hedgerow 3862 jug
This was followed by baggin_time who heaved his massive 18″ lidless temple jar in TEMPLE 2880 into our view. This was Buy-it-Nowed for £480.00, but hasn’t found a buyer. Expensive for me at this price, readers, what do you think?
TEMPLE 2880 temple jar minus cover
Now the last thing I want to do, readers is finish without mentioning the fabulous 6″ Floral Comets 3387 vase in shape 467 sold by antdeco. Despite having a hairline it was bid on by 10 ebayers and reached £341.25. A nice little piece to finish on.
Comets 3387 vase S467
As ever, I welcome your comments on my blog. Please post any comments you have using the form provided. Here’s to next month (and another month when I will unfortunately be out of the game. Damn!). I might still be able to post another blog next month though, assuming the leccy company haven’t cut off my power supply and I can still fire up my little ‘puter (but the room will probably have to be by candle light I reckon).
Good luck in February,
eBay Masterspy
