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Things to look out for when buying a knife via mailing lists.

I'm trying to update "a pocket guide to knives" The section I'm working on now is online buying. I'm trying to come up with things for the buyer to look out for. Below is what I have so far. Does anyone have any other words of wisdom they'd like to add:

Is the person a regular contributor on the list? If they are new to the list and have just dropped by to sell stuff how do you know you can trust them? The only way you can know for sure is if you are regular member of the list. Join the list, participate and learn about the list. Otherwise your buying opportunity is about as trustworthy as buying a Rolex out of the trunk of car in an alley. Make sure you an the seller are regular and preferably long time members. Know who you are buying from!

Has other people dealt with the person? Again who can vouch for the honesty of the seller? Have other people on the list dealt with this person and had a positive experience?

Is the seller a dealer or just another collector? Is this a person who runs an eBay store or Flea market booth and is just fishing for a new market or is it another collector who is looking to sell or trade because their tastes have changed. When they ask for the payment are they giving you a personal name or a business name. What type of address are you mailing the payment to? Are you doing a PayPal transaction? Again, know who you are dealing with.

Have you seen pictures of the item you plan to buy? What guarantees have been offered? Do not buy an item if the person cannot provide pictures of the product. Ask if you can return it if you don't like it. Ask about mailing charges. Normally shipping charges are something that you will be stuck with. So find out as much as possible about the product before sending a person money.

Is the seller a Nagging Nick? Once you asked about a knife does the person start sending unsolicited offers to your email? Does he continue to do it even after you have asked him to stop? Report him to the list administrator and report to your eamil provider as Spam. Don't be forced into buying simply because you emailed the guy about a knife.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 17, 2013 at 20:18

I've only had one purchase on ebay that didn't go well. I ordered something and got the wrong item. I tried to contact the seller and got no reply. This seller had a phone # so I tried it and got some woman who knew nothing about ebay sales. So I filed a complaint and tried to cancel the order. I was refunded the money immediately. This is possible when using ebay and paypal. I would never give a card # to an individual seller. I have sold a few things on ebay and I think I know what happened. I think the seller had a few sales and printed all the shipping slips and put the wrong one on two boxes. I'm sure someone got our item. So as mentioned ebay and paypal are pretty safe. They refund the money if it's appropriate then they deal with the seller to get their money back. So the buyer is protected. They also have means to protect sellers but I've never needed that.

I have sent money to someone's paypal email when they are selling a knife on bladeforums.com before. This is pretty risky but I haven't had a problem. It seems most of the time when you deal with people who frequent a specific forum they deal honestly. Of course the longer a person has been on a forum the greater your chances of not having a problem. This was mentioned a couple of times in the first post. I use a card when I buy from cutleryshoppe.com because he doesn't accept paypal. But his site is one of the more respected knife sites I'm aware of. I recommend him to everyone who asks for a recommendation. Great guy to deal with.

So I can't say I've ever dealt with a crook. People make mistakes and some people don't ship very fast and some people don't communicate as well as they should but that doesn't make them dishonest.

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In MemoriamPermalink Reply by Robert Burris on August 18, 2013 at 15:12

I agree Miss Jan, since I started having a PayPal account, I am safer.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Spielvogel on August 18, 2013 at 15:20

I agree with that, I have paypal also.

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Permalink Reply by Tobias Gibson on August 19, 2013 at 9:57

While I have PayPal, I have gone the money order route with several people with no problem; and those who know me know I'm not the most trusting person.

I've probably bought and sold items via discussions groups on at least a dozen occasions. In every case, the buying and selling was done via money orders. However, with the exception of one time, it was always with people active in the discussion group and had been there for some time.

On the one exception, it was with a person I had assumed had been on the list for some time but really had just dropped to shop his stuff with a hard luck story. I bought an item or two to help the guy out. Some of the knives were disappointing but other things turned out pretty good. Overall, I felt the deal was okay. But then a week later the guy was asking me to buy even more stuff! Wouldn't take no for no an answer. I finally put his email address in my Spam file.

About a month later, I was perusing the the archives of Blade Forums and saw he had blitzed that forum about a year before with the same hard-luck story. And soon after that I got a friend request from him on i Knife Collector. Basically the guy was shopping around looking for a place to dump his knife collection. I guess at some point in time he thought he was going to get rich buying cheap used knives at flea markets and on eBay only to realize that cheap knives are pretty much always going to be cheap used knives.

I think that should also be a tip for the knife collector. Knife collections are not an investment; they are money pit. Hopefully your loved ones will cherish a few of the knives in your collection and keep them. However, once you move on from this world the bulk of your collection will probably be sold below cost in an estate sale. If you plan on investing your money, put it in a 401K or a coffee can in the back yard. Unless your loved ones are knife nuts, I guarantee they will appreciate a coffee can stuffed with cash more than a drawer full of old knives.