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OT: Post about someone trying to make money off of the space shuttle explosion.

Started by LucyBop,

49 posts in this topic

PovertyRow

PovertyRow

Posted
Posted

Everyone sees things differently and the people who are crapping on the auctions are behaving pretty childishly IMO by stopping people who want to honor the Columbia by having a memento of it.

 

Respecting your opinion, I have to disagree. Mementos of Columbia are by no means scarce. Putting items up for sale on the same day the tragedy occurred is tantamount to demanding the will be read on the first day of the wake.

 

If folks want a memento they can certainly wait a while. If their interest is retained then fine - they can have a memento.

 

I did a quick serach on ebay consisting of:

 

"twin towers" -tolkein -lord -rings

 

The last three minuses were to help eliminate the LORD OF THE RINGS movie/book/poster/srtill/etc. Still returned 579 items.

 

Do the same search for Twin Towers I did from the ebay main search. Then sort by price. The highest is $500 for an original oil painting. The next several are also for some form of original. None of them have bids. In fact most of the first four pages have no bids, even though by page four we are at 9.95 starters and a few $10 BINS that have been online more than a few days.

 

Suddenly September 11th seems something on no great interest (Gawd!). Wait a year and do a similar search for Columbia. I am sure another disaster will have overtaken ebay.

 

And one quesiton - if Columbia HAD been a success - how much do you think the exact same items would be going for?

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Joanna

Joanna

Posted
Posted

And one quesiton - if Columbia HAD been a success - how much do you think the exact same items would be going for?

 

I did a search of it all on Feb. 1, and the most telling thing I saw were a couple of coins. The seller listed them on the 27th, or thereabouts. He was most likely trying to catch any peripheral buzz off the mission -- probably the normal way things are done with space-related memorabilia. Both were listed at a paltry $9.97. They were commemorative coins of the first Columbia launch in '81.

 

When I pulled up the auctions yesterday, one was over $5,000 and the other over $3,000. So as much as we are blaming the sellers (and in this case, the seller was 100% blameless because of the date of his listing), it's obvious that the buyers must take equal responsibilty. The seller did nothing but list a couple of $10 coins on an ordinary day. The buyers made the auction into a ghoulish hunt for souveniers.

 

I wonder what the seller thought of it all. Obviously, getting $8000 for $20 worth of stuff is an extraordinary windfall. But I imagine each bid felt like a moral knife in the heart.

 

-- Joanna

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greggy

greggy

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Posted

Joanna, do you even think for any moment that the bids are legit? Even though the auctions were started earlier than the tradegy, the punishment bidders may not have noticed and just bid them up. Sorry...but no ones that stupid to pay that much for some coins! Are they? confused.gif

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Joanna

Joanna

Posted
Posted

greggy,

 

I looked at the bidders, specifically looking for punishment bidders. There were only a few bidders driving up the price and the names were "normal-looking" ebay names with plenty of feedback. they could still be punishers, but if so, it looked like they were using their real accounts.

 

As for stupidity, I don't know. There's a lot of it in this world.

 

-- Joanna

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PovertyRow

PovertyRow

Posted
Posted

Hey Joanna,

 

I appreciate your buyer perspective. It takes two to tango. It is why I said:

 

If folks want a memento they can certainly wait a while. If their interest is retained then fine - they can have a memento.

 

And I shall shoot you some cool covers as soon as my scanner is updated! grin.gif

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greggy

greggy

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Yeah, there are a lot of stupidity in the world but.....that much for some coins. I'm pretty sure that the deal won't be consumated. Unfortunate for the seller as it wasn't his/her fault for having it posted while the tradegy happened! frown.gif

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chrisfuccione

chrisfuccione

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I can rememeber right after 9/11 a company that had a safe full of SAE's. SAE's are silver bullion coins that the goverment puts out every year. The comany had CU the parent company of PCGS ( another grading company like NGC or CGC)slab them with the 9/11 notation. I recived a email about 9/20 from this comany trying to sell them. They also said that a part of the proceeds wuold go to the 9/11 fund. You would be supriced at the responce from the coin communitee about this whole scam. CU got a major black eye during this whole mess(not the first time I had to wonder how they run thier busines. And not the last time.)

That is some backround on the death coins that was found on EBAY. CHRIS

 

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chrisfuccione

chrisfuccione

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Now for my opion. The sellers of the "mementos" so close after the accident are the lowest of low and should look at thier morals. The buyers of this stuff deserve to pay all the money they can on this stuff because in a few months after this leaves the headlines they will be lucky to make at least 1/10th thier money back. CHRIS

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