American Bottle Auction

[annie44]

I was pretty surprised after getting an email yesterday inviting me to comment on a customer who wanted to return a bottle to American Bottle Auction. Regardless of whether the buyer just had "buyers remorse" or not, the policy of ABA is you can return a bottle "not questions asked". And yet when this buyer requested a return, he was exposed to public ridicule. What do you all think? And no....I am not the buyer! I happily own many dug bottles!

http://americanbottle.com/blog/?p=473

 

[annie44]

Somewhat unrelated but the whiskey mentioned by the person in the quote below is the one item I was bidding on in that auction. I'm glad I didn't win!

"I won, among some other bottles, the William Daley whiskey bottle (the bottle with the huge top). Alas, the bottle has considerable wear, easily visible in sunlight, that was not mentioned in the video. (Come to think of hit, there’s not a word about condition in the video, other than that the bottle is a “great exampleâ€). "

 

[GuntherHess]

What do you all think?

I wasnt the buyer either. I got the same email. It seemed unprofessional to me. They could have just discussed the idea of dug vs. non-dug without bringing a particular customer into the fray. I got the impression they were just p-i-s-s-ed by the return and the attitude of the buyer. Dealing with difficult customers is just part of the selling game.

 

[tigue710]

Sounds like the same guy who made me sick of selling on eBay. The bottle was very accurately described... That's one of the problems I've found with the Internet is it's created access for amatures who have no idea what they are doing to get involved in situations and acutions where you really need to understand the roots of Bottle collecting...

 

[baltbottles]

I do think it was in poor taste of ABA to put one buyer out to public ridicule.... I have had condition issues with all of the Auction houses I have won bottles from...... I generally will not return things Because the condition issues are minor but they would have effected how much I would have bid.... But in all cases I really wanted the bottle.. So I will deal with the discrepancy in the description.

As a general rule I will not buy bottles that have been tumbled... Unless they are a unique or close to unique example... Then I will still not chase them to the same money I would, had the bottle been left in dug condition.

I have been quite disappointed in winning several bottles described as being mint that were clearly tumbled.....

I think these auction houses need to start putting more effort into accurate descriptions with out all the hype..... let the bottles sell themselves.

Chris

 

[CazDigger]

What was the bottle in question? (I didn't get the memo, lol)

 

[CazDigger]

Ok, I read the blog. I would love to see the bottle first hand. I am pretty sure it is the same one that was on eBay earlier this year and was returned. It looks like an unembossed I Coverts Balm of Life. Could the same guy have bought it and returned it twice?????.

 

[baltbottles]

It looks like a nice bottle and I don't think the $600 price was unreasonable... I can understand just wanting mint bottles.... And even some light haze is distracting from mint....

Chris

 

[saratogadriver]

I didn't see the email as unprofessional personally. He altered the name of the buyer. And he asked for our opinion as to whether we felt the description was accurate.

Unless there are dug bottle condition issues, I cannot imagine an auction house announcing it was a dug bottle unless it was relevant to provenance. That bottle looked like it came out of an attic to me. Pretty clean.

I certainly felt this was better than another auction house that I won't name, who has been much mentioned on here, who fought to avoid taking back a bottle with obvious damage, then put the same bottle back on another auction without full disclosure of the damage.

Jim G

 

[cookie]

Which is the best bottle auction house as far as being accurate with bottle conditions in their dealings /